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Durabook Laptop Marketing Claims 'Destroyed'
jkwdoc writes "The crew at [H] Consumer got a hold of a Durabook sample from Twinhead and got the green light to hold Twinhead to their word about what kind of abuse the unit can withstand. Twinhead originally claimed that their unit could survive 26 drops from 29 inches. A cracked LCD and busted hard drive later, they changed their tune. Complete with video!"
No, if they are (were) claiming that it would survive 26 drops, then that should be the minimum amount of abuse that could break it. The average should be much higher.
From the article, they made the machine more durable by replacing plastic structural parts with magnesium parts.
Given the apparent propensity of lithium ion batteries to catch on fire, I wonder if this is a good idea. I know I don't have any fire extinguishers that will put out burning magnesium.
The one I'm writing on (CF-27 toughbook) wouldn't flinch even if it were on. You'd not want to do it on a table you care about, though, as it'll leave gouges in the surface; there's no plastic padding on the corners. A friend of mine was giving a presentation on a CF-26, and when asked if that was a toughbook, unplugged the cable, closed the hatch over it, threw the laptop against the brick wall, running, picked it up, plugged it in, and finished the presentation. Of course, that did crack the screen, but it was decidedly an out-of-spec event.
Lately I've bought an Alphasmart Dana, which looks like the Tandy you describe, and is a Palm system with a battery, changeable for 3 AA batteries, leaving you with a 25 hour autonomy. If that is not enough, you may still get; from the same manufacturer, the simpler "Neo" offers a whopping 700 hours autonomy, and 8 text buffers (no PalmOS this time), and some basic connectivity to a PC.
http://www.alphasmart.com/products/
Not exactly "feel the power" kind of stuff but imho, these do nicely match the portability, general resilience and autonomy requirements. They're rather expansive, too.
Another interesting way is to adjoin a Bluetooth keyboard to a PDA.
Just my 2 eurocents.
I have so far purchased 20 of these durabooks - we issue them to staff who work in the field, and aren't particularly carefull with corporate equipment.
The Durabooks cost approximately the same as a similar 'non-hardened' laptop does, but are a far more rugged construction.
They aren't competitors for the OpenTec Warriors, Panasonic Toughbooks, or Grid laptops. But they also don't cost the same.
A typical Durabook will cost you AU$2,000 each. An Opentec or Panasonic will cost you around AU$8,000.
You pay your money, and you take your chances. At the end of the day the Durabooks have easily outlasted the Dell laptops we previously purchased, and represent good value for money. At least these days when I threaten to bend a laptop over someones head they take me more seriously than when we issued the Dells.
Yeah, we used to use a thing called a Husky Hunter as a datalogger in underground mining. One fell down an ore pass, along with several thousand tonnes of rock and was retrieved several days later. The screen and most of the keys had been abraded off, but by pushing the keystubs with a paper clip, we were able to retrieve the stored data (worth much more than the Husky).
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."