ruggedness

As I continue to wind down Speeds and Feeds, I picked ruggedness as the topic for part 3.

In part 2 of this wrap-up series, I on Tuesday discussed reliability, suggesting that an increasing portion of the transistor budget in personal computers should be used to avoid, detect, and recover from hardware, software, and data errors.

Ruggedness, the ability of a PC to survive adverse physical conditions, complements reliability by further increasing the practical availability of a PC to do useful work.

As with efficiency in power management (part 1's topic), this is an area where PCs can learn … Read more

"We have the most rugged laptop." "No, WE have the ruggedest!" "Psshhh, ours is even ruggedier!"

No, those aren't real words, but that's kind of how the marketing and advertising goes among the niche of companies making laptops that can stand up to dust, wind, rain, vibration, and getting dropped.

The latest entrant is General Dynamics subsidiary GD-Itronix, which has rebranded its GoBook XR-1 as the GD8000. According to the company, it's the ruggederiest of them all.

It's built to "mil spec," or military specifications for rugged gear, … Read more

Dell is back with a slimmed down version of its fully rugged 14-inch laptop.

Like the company itself, the XFR's second-gen improvements on the device are incremental and in some cases, slightly experimental. The E6400 XFR is the name of what used to be the Latitude XFR D630. The laptop gets an internal tuneup, boasting better processing power (Intel Core2Duo), discrete graphics enabled by better cooling. The new XFR also keeps most of its original features: touch screen, a solid-state drive, mobile broadband, GPS, and long battery life. In this case, Dell says an additional battery pack will keep the laptops going for up to 13 hours.

The XFR is strengthened by a new exterior material the PC maker is calling Ballistic Armor, which replaces the magnesium alloy used in its other laptops. It's allowed the machine to be trimmed down--it's now 8.5 pounds instead of 9 pounds--and also strengthened: it meets military specifications for ruggedness and can withstand a 4-foot drop rather than 3.

Ballistic Armor was developed by a partner company and licensed exclusively to Dell. It's a hybrid, nonmetal polymer designed to better absorb shocks and withstand the elements. That Dell is experimenting with different materials is intended to signal its willingness to try new things and focus on creating different options for targeted customers.

In this case, that's military contractors, government, and utility company field workers, law enforcement, and other groups that are not known for being particularly gentle with their computers. … Read more

It happens every time. The mainsail cover is off, and it's freshening nicely. Then the boss calls begging you to get online and placate one of her key accounts. Luckily, she's seen fit to spring for the fully salt/fog-certified B300 ruggedized notebook.

What distinguishes this rugged, watertight, vibration- and drop-shock resistant PC--besides the sealed ports and connector cover--is the finish. According to manufacturer Getac, it protects everything from hinges to the keyboard to the electrical innards from salty corrosion, thus allowing you to telecommute from deck to dune.

The B300 was recently certified under standards set by … Read more

Logic Instrument got FCC approval nearly two years ago for its "Tetra T-Pad" rugged smartphone, but not much has been heard about it since then. Perhaps the French manufacturer thought better of trying to sell a phone that costs about $2,600 on the American market.

That's the price tag Lussorian quotes for this steroidal handset, which it says has met U.S. military standards that require 25 tests involving the harshest conditions. Weighing just under 1.3 pounds, the T-Pad is dustproof, waterproof, and can withstand shock, vibration, and subzero temperatures. As for the phone specs, … Read more

A Canadian company that goes by the apt name of Stealth Computer is determined to bring military-grade specs to consumer gear. A few months back it came out with its "TuffTouch" monitor, a 17-inch touch-screen LCD encased in aluminum alloy for harsh conditions, and now it has a big brother.

The latest model in Stealth's SV-2400 "Industrial Grade" line is a full 24 inches of ruggedized goodness, fortified in steel casing. The steroidal screen has a resolution of 1,920 x 1,200 pixels and 160-degree viewing angles.

Most important to the survivalist set, it … Read more

The people at iKey (not to be confused with IKEA) clearly have some sort of James Bond complex. Last fall they debuted a keyboard made for night-vision goggles, and now they've come out with a model that supposedly can endure the harshest environments. (What's up with all these survivalist keyboards, anyway?)

The DT-5K-MEM-TP, whose name perhaps intentionally sounds like an encrypted message, is an "industrial membrane" keyboard that's made with a "hard-coated, textured polyster film" that supposedly puts silicon keypads to shame. It also bears the distinction of being NEMA 4X-certified, which the … Read more

Crave has often mused on the pathetic flimsiness of modern gadgetry. But in a world where waterproof means splashproof and ruggedized means you'd better not drop it, there's all the more reason to celebrate tech that just won't die.

Whatever the reason for its survival, the technology we've collected here deserves enormous credit. It's coped with years of abuse and thousands of meters of cumulative drops, but it continues to operate as well as it did on the day it emerged from the factory. Click here to view the collection.

(Source: Crave UK)

A lot of computer gear these days seems to be following the Hummer/SUV trend of the auto industry from the early '90s: the bigger and tougher the better. We've seen, for example, military-grade laptops, keyboards, and even nuke-proof USB drives. So why should LCDs be left out?

Specialty equipment maker Stealth Computer plans to fill that void with the "TuffTouch," a 17-inch touch-screen monitor encased in aluminum alloy for "harsh environment applications," according to the company. The 1,280x1,024 monitor can also be ordered with a built-in "Little PC"--and it'… Read more