Slashdot Mirror

I guess what I'm getting at is that I'd be more then willing to sacrifice performance for durability. Am I the only one who thinks this way? Or are there laptop manufacturers out there who make decent, cheap machines that are built like tanks, but don't necessarily have a higher end hardware inside?

    Cheap, not. But you can try Panasonic Toughbook or even beyond, check out Itronix.

The idea of cranking some power into a laptop has had me following the OLPC project from the start. When out in the forest/mountain where you need power for a device like a laptop & sat-phone the product line gets extreamly narrow.

You need 2 methods to effectivly power your stuff.

Solar being the most obvious sence it powers life on this planet ~~
For solar you need a good inverter & good panels. Flexible panels make it much easier as you can get more panel per square inch to send to the inverter.
Here is a decent setup

The second would be for at night or in low light. Your gas or for lightweight & low sound.. crank, peddal or plain old electronic car lighter hook up. Whatever gets juice into uour batterys!
I heard a few fit hampsters could work nicely as a non-stop power supply.
-Now if your into rugged outdoor equipment & have some time to drool.. check these links.
Itronix
gobook3 Itronix laptop

http://itronix.com/

These ones will take a lot of abuse. I use them in the California and Arizona deserts every so often without too much trouble.

Itronix GoBook
Panasonic Toughbook

They are more expensive than your average notebooks but the extra costs means they take a beating from a baseball bat and still be fully functional. Also unlike some of the other types of MIL SPEC notebooks these actually look and function similar to a regular notebook.

Well, I'm not sure that this TabletPC is waterproof, but it is ruggized to MIL-STD standards... http://www.itronix.com/products/tablet/Gobooktable t.asp

Just posting a shameless plug for a local company : Itronix PDA ... don't forget to say who told you about it when you call to order :-)

Cool! Now I can strip out some of my old laptops (like, say, the Itronix XC6250 with a tamper proof screw driver) and fit this nifty mobo inside. If I can just figure out how to interface the LCD display, I'm set. No longer will I deal with trying to conform linux to Itronix's slow board when I can get something else to run in their rugged casing. :)

Unless...you guys know of someone who sells rugged laptop chassis parts?

I live in Spokane and have for the last 9 years (the fact I have time to browse slashdot has something to do with the job market here.)
You could say my kids live at the mall - or at least they would if I let them. I've never seen this car and my kids would be constantly talking about it if they had seen it.One would be telling me how cute it was - I want it -- While the other would tell me it's so stupid.
Me thinks its not quite as reliable as they might imply in the article or maybe they have driven it and some of those H2 drivers gave them a scare. This is SUV country - The thing to do on the weekend around here is head up into the mountains(My former employer uses an H2 a promo for it it's ruggized labtops.
For about 5 years, I commuted via bicycle in this town and it's not for the faint of heart. Once I could tell a guy did not look my way when he pulled his old pickup in from of me. I had the right of way and was going 20 MPH at the time. I slammed on my breaks ASAP. He saw me just in time but we still hit front wheel to front wheel. That would have caused $5,000.00 to this eletric car minimum

If you're looking for durable, go with the GoBook MAX. It's made out of very tough materials and you can just hose it down if it gets dirty. Otherwise, I can't help you since I bought a PowerBook.

I recently had a customer who needed a laptop for research use on a boat down in California's Salton Sea. I did a little research and found the GoBook MAX made by Itronix. It's ~$5,000, but man is it a neat little machine. Their site has a video where they hose the thing down and drop it a few times. When it finaly arrived at our office I wanted to set it on fire and throw it off the roof(for QA reasons ofcourse). Boss wouldn't have it though. The only issue we had was that there was no LPT port to connect this special hardware anti-piracy key that the users needed to run a specific app. I think they just got a USB adapter though, so no big deal. Check it out, it's a very sexy beast.

Ripped from the specs:

"The GoBook MAX exceeds military specs for drop, water resistance, dust and vibration. The GoBook MAX thrives in the most severe environments imaginable. Freezing cold. Searing heat. Pouring rain. Intrinsically safe,(Class 1, Division 2, Group D) the GoBook MAX enables operators to safely work in HazMat environments; on flightlines, near hazardous chemicals or explosive materials. With Itronix' innovative CRMA(TM) wireless communications, radios can be swapped or upgraded within each unit. Backed by a limited lifetime warranty and comprehensive services package, the Itronix GoBook MAX sets a new standard for ultra-rugged, wireless computing."

Specs
Website
MaximumPC review

Itronix GoBook Max

Field Pack

Both of these claim to have extreme battery life times and since they are marketed more towards military applications, they are pretty rugged. I mean, come on, check out Itronix's quote:
We have teamed with select systems integrators to enable you to deploy a solution right now for border security, first responder teams, bio-terrorism response teams, and network infrastructure.
. . .if that doesn't just scream gimmegimmegimme, I don't know what does. Your nation might *need* you while you are on that train. You could be ready.
The FieldPac looks pretty tough, too. . . think about it, you are on that train and some thug demands your money and you can reach down, pat the case and say "Don't make me use this . . ."

Seriously though, the app type stuff you mentioned could probably be done on most any semi-recent laptop (P2-233 would probably suffice) and most of the consumer laptops are going to have fluff (like *sound* who needs *that*?) that could dimish your battery run time (somewhat). If you really want long battery life, hunt around in the gear aimed towards outdoors work (again though, they are probably outside the 1400 buck price range).

Hi,

While not actually a MODDED unit, since you can buy them... but Itronix recently licensed a market segment of our illuminated keyboard patent. This they are using in their new Rugged Go-Book Laptops.

IBM saw the need to use an LED to light their keys from the top in their Thinkpad Laptops. The problem with this is the added glare to the LCD screen making it a little harder to read, and the keys are not lit evenly. In fact in a recent review when the IBM is just compared to Itronix's glow in the dark keys, reviewer Conrad H. Blickenstorfer of PenComputing.com stated "A clever idea, but it doesn't come close to Itronix' solution" (see article for more info Article ) ....

For more info on Itronix see . Itronix.com

For more info about the upcoming release of the Nite-Surfer keyboards and retail laptops watch our site at .Nite-Surfer.com

Happy New Year!!!!!

David C. Byrd

I would check with Itronix.... I would tend to think NOTHING can compare to their durability.

See Itronix.com

Not only are these very durable, They are drop tested multiple times, they are waterproof/dustproof, and able to stand temperatures varying from -15 to +140 F. They have a special LCD screen called Color-View and special keyboards that are illuminated.

Check them out....

All this talk about tough books....Yea they're nice....But I'll stick to my purpose built Itronix rugged notebook. built in wireless modem, conforms to mil spec impact and moisture standards.....I love it!

I took a long hard look at my portable computing needs, and decided to get an Itronix rugged laptop. Why? Well, I take it with me back and forth to school every day, so I wanted something that will stand up to the abuse of the bus (yea, so I use public tranportation) the local Seattle weather and any other general mayhem I encounter in a typical day. I've had 2 laptops previous to this one and they both died from being banged around in my backpack. Not this one! The main things I use it for are writing papers, surfing the web and emailing, so I have no need for dvd, huge lcd, stereo speakers blah blah... It has a built in CDPD wireless modem so I'm always connected on the go. I have 3 full sized machines at home if I need to do some serious power computing.

Similar to the laptop mentioned is the
Itronix XC-6250 Pro. I have an older version
that I bought suplus for $40, and it is
sweet. I can stand on it without any
damage! Also, the XC6250 can withstand more
drops (54) than the one the article talks about(20something).
No, I am not associated with Itronix!

If You could get your hands on one, these might fit your bill Rugged Laptops from Itronix