Gladius G0830 Product Review
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Technical Review Gladius G0830 POS System Flexible, innovative Intel Cherry Trail-powered fanless 8-inch tablet and dock system for point-of-sale, retail and warehousing deployments

In this article we're looking at the Gladius G0830 from ARBOR Technology, a Taiwan-based ISO-9001 certified embedded and networking manufacturer founded over two decades ago. The Gladius G0830, initially announced early 2016, nominally is a light and handy 8-inch tablet for various warehousing, retail, and mobile point-of-sale applications. In essence, however, it is really a system more than just a single device, a system that consists of the tablet, a docking station or desktop cradle, a special pistol grip, and even a thermal printer. The tablet can be used by itself, but ARBOR's primary...

But doesn't that approach defeat the very purpose of an mPOS system? It doesn't; the cradle is still small and light (3.6 pounds) to bring along almost anywhere. And by not integrating all of the conceivably required mPOS components into the tablet, ARBOR broadened the appeal of the G0830 tablet beyond just mPOS applications. There are numerous warehousing, hospitality, and retail applications that need RFID/NFC, cameras, and scanners, but not necessarily the card readers and authentication modules. Taking a look at the Gladius G0830 The first impression of the Gladius G0830 depends on...

Below is a look at the Gladius G0830 tablet from the front and from all four sides. This shows that while from the front the device looks just like a consumer media tablet, the side views reveal that this is a tool for the job. street Include end-™' ■n location a 1 iinuliqur 'f purchaser £ a^°subordin _ often ^ Q) chain St P CO Si CD sC q-M-2 ^ W o forms L_ C SbrowKuig O flRetaiiersfj IJ 1 Som = sa1csells J activity markc a Hkfl Note that despite the tablet's obvious toughness and the presence of protected ports and an industrial grade barcode reader, the body of the Gladius G0830 is...

The image below shows the left side of the Gladius tablet with the protective doors open (and photoshopped out of the way). The lefthand I/O block includes a standard audio jack and a slot for a Micro SIM card. The righthand block has a micro USB 2.0 port with OTG support, and next to it a micro SD card slot. Looking at just the tablet alone, one might wonder why there isn't also a standard USB port or two, as there'd be room for it. But the tablet is part of a system, and so all the standard-size I/O (USB, RJ45, HDMI) is in the dock. Design and construction In terms of construction, the...

Now you can examine the inside of the Gladius G0830. The backside is really just a bare cover with nothing but the scanner mounted on it. All electronics and components are mounted onto the front half. Prominently visible now is the large, but very thin, Lithium-Polymer battery. It's a 3.8 Volt, 4,000 mAh design that makes for 15.2 watt-hours. The battery sits loose in between two metal guides that are part of the overall aluminum front of the tablet. While not externally accessible, replacing the battery, which is plugged into the mother board, is therefore easy. The black rectangle on top...

It almost goes without saying that the unit's super-efficient Atom x5-Z8350 processor doesn't require a fan. In fact, it doesn't need heat pipes or any other thermal engineering either. Whatever heat it produces is soaked up by the unit's substantial aluminum front and also a 2x3 inch of copper foil (which we removed for the photography). The only separate and distinctly visible module on the main board is a u-blox NEO-M8N GNSS module for positioning. One cool thing about the M8 is that it can track up to three of the four available GNSS systems concurrently, those being GPS (the US...

Display and touch The Gladius G0830's display measures 8 inches diagonally and it offers 1024 x 768 pixel resolution. That translates into 160 pixels per inch (ppi).. That's much sharper than most conventional desktop or laptop displays, but it's not in the "retina" class where individual pixels are no longer visible to the naked eye. Most smartphones and premium tablets these days have much higher ppi displays, but there are good reasons why ARBOR decided to spec the G0830 as is. First, the 1024 x 768 pixel XGA format has been an industry standard for dedicated vertical market and...

Dock and data collection We haven't said much about the Gladius G0830 dock. While most docks are optional accessories that some users need and others do not, the G0830's dock is really an integral part of the system. Yes, the tablet can be used without the dock and away from the dock, but the placement of important I/O on the dock rather than the tablet, and the small 15 watt-hour battery indicate that the G0830 and its dock work together. So what does the dock provide, other than propping up the tablet? That'd be a standard HDMI port, a RJ-45 LAN jack for wired network connection, and...

While the tablet can be used by itself, both with or without the optional pistol grip that more than doubles battery capacity, in most POS deployments, the Gladius G0830 will be used in conjunction with its dock. The dock provides MSR, chipcard, and smart card reading, as well as additional wired connectivity. The tablet itself measures just 8.21 x 5.93 x 1.63 inches — barely more than an iPad mini — and weighing a mere pound and a quarter. Its 8-inch IPS capacitive touch screen offers 1024 x 768 pixel XGA resolution, making for a crips, sharp picture and offering enough space to run...

(by Conrad H. Blickenstorfer from RuggedPCReview) About ARBOR ARBOR Technology Corp., founded in 1993, is a leading provider of Smart City and loT solutions. With more than 20 years of experience in providing customer-driven, high performance, and industrial strength computing solutions in various industries. ARBOR strives to provide a complete solution from board to system, computing to communication in healthcare, transportation, industrial automation, mobile computing, digital signage, retail, intelligent building and home. ARBOR is ISO-9001, ISO-13485 and ISO-14001 -certifiied and...