Certain embodiments disclose an integrated dual-device architecture for marrying modern computing devices (e.g. laptops, smartphones and tablets) with standalone tactical radios (e.g. military or first-responder push-to-talk radios) with the goal of leveraging modern mobile devices for improved interfaces and usability (compared to a tactical radio) while reducing the footprint (size, weight, battery power/capacity, and cost) of the tactical radio. Certain embodiments encompass offloading various traditional radio workloads (e.g. voice processing, control/management processing, and cryptographic processing) from the radio onto the mobile device, dramatically simplifying the tactical radio design and cost (e.g. making the radio a “dumb” transceiver only), and physically conjoining the mobile device with the reduced tactical radio into a single, conveniently operated and transported system.