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Dell Rugged Laptops Not Quite Tough Enough
An anonymous reader writes "Trusted Reviews has put the new Dell XFR rugged laptop through the grinder and it hasn't fared as well as expected. Considering that these guys drove a car over a Panasonic Toughbook, they went pretty easy on the Dell, but it still couldn't take the punishment. It looks like Dell still has a way to go to steal the ball from Panasonic when it comes to all terrain computing."
So the Dell blends after all!
I've seen Panasonic Toughbooks in police cars, fire trucks, and in the vehicles of industrial companies, but I guess I don't get why; the laptops are well protected in the car or truck, and it's not like a cop is going to use it as a shield in a shoot out, or a fireman is going to be typing something inside a burning building. When a plumber came over to fix some pipes, he brought with him a battered Compaq laptop that was missing several keys, looked like it'd gone through hell, but was still working and wasn't "ruggedized" in any way I could tell.
This is pure ignorance on my part...I can appreciate there is very likely a need, or they wouldn't make them, but I really don't know what that need is; especially, under what circumstances would it be possible to get my laptop run over by a truck as part of a normal day?
That said, they definitely *look* cool and wouldn't mind having one myself, especially if I thought I'd need to check my email outside, in a snowstorm, in the Sierra Madre. :)
Er, what? This Slashdot summary does not jive with the article at all. The laptop was perfectly functional after all of their tests. The only problems they had were a minor cosmetic issue of the adhesive coming off around the trackpad (which they just called "fit and finish") and that some of the doors might pop open during drops since they weren't double locked. Their conclusion was that it was indeed quite rugged.
Entirely context dependent. Their testing would be excessive if it were performed on an ordinary "it'd be nice if it survives the daily grind for a few years, and not feeling like cheap plastic crap is always a bonus; but no actual claims are made" laptop. Yours is one of those.
However, this is the special OMG-MIL-SPEC, super durable, extra rugged, no-expense-spared model. If Dell wants to sell a machine in that segment, this sort of testing is perfectly appropriate.
A regular laptop won't start up at -40 after a North Dakota night. The toughbook says "Please wait, warming up" on the BIOS screen while it pre-warms the hard drive. It also works just fine when it's baking in the sun at 150, whereas the old Dell I had would crash at those temperatures.
Laptops are weak. They should be able to defend themselves against dangers such as smashing into the ground, like this experimental Lenovo model.
"Stop failing the Turing test!" -- Dilbert
We used to believe that the ToughBooks were the end all be all of ruggedized computers; that is until the day someone actually managed to break one!
If you read the warranty statement from Panasonic you will see the following under Section 3 - Limited Warranty Exclusions
"Failures which result from alteration, accident, misuse, introduction of liquid or other foreign matter into the unit, abuse, neglect, installation, maladjustment of consumer controls, improper maintenance or modification, use not in accordance with product use instructions"
That means that if your coffee somehow spills on the laptop and fries the motherboard Panasonic will not repair it under warranty!
On the other hand if you purchase a Dell or an HP ruggedized notebook with the accidental damage protection the notebook will be repaired with no questions asked.
Considering the cost of the Panasonic ToughBooks, I would take a Dell XFR + CompleteCare any day!
Besides, regardless of what notebook you own, if you roll over it with your vehicle (by accident) and it happens to break, would you not rather be covered?
I'm at a loss as to why your post was modded insightful.
- "It's no surprise that the military customers would require a lower ruggedness spec than civilian users. "
- "Civilian usage, OTOH, requires a device that is durable and lasts for years and can be used in any environment. They don't need great processing power, they just need something that can run their dedicated apps well enough."
I'm guessing your perception of military laptop usage to be something out of "Hackers?"
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
This isn't a uber traveler laptop. It's for people working in harsh environments. Do you work on an oil rig, war zone or the middle of the amazon? If you answer no, then you don't need a rugged laptop.
I worked for the county sheriff's office for several years as an IT / network guy and can tell you that the more durable laptops are DEFINITELY useful in the police context. No matter how often you tell them to be careful or even discipline them, cops will be cops, and most of them are pretty rough around the edges. They toss their notebooks around, drop them, spill coffee on them, you name it. We had one notebook in for updates and servicing that looked like it had fallen into a threshing machine. My coworker asked the officer what the HELL he'd done to it, and he defensively said that HE hadn't done anything to it. It was his K9 partner who had decided to use it as a chew toy, not his problem. At least it stall ran. Oh, and we did have one stop a bullet, although nobody was actually in the car at the time.
It's no surprise that the military customers would require a lower ruggedness spec than civilian users.
And then there's this story that utterly contradicts you: http://www.toughbookuniverse.com/?p=16
FWIW, somebody picked up my MacBook to see how heavy it was, and managed to drop it off the desk.
How long did it take you to remove your hands from their throat?
A construction site would qualify. Normal laptops can't really go outside site offices because of the copious quantities of general shit floating around (dust, water, temperature extremes, etc).
See my journal, I write things there
Considering the cost of the Panasonic ToughBooks, I would take a Dell XFR + CompleteCare any day!
You are missing the point. If you happen to work in any sort of extreme environment (very hot, very cold, very dusty, etc) your Dell is going to die pretty quickly if it even works at all. Furthermore there are jobs where equipment failure has serious consequences. The point is that it doesn't die in the first place, not that you can replace it. Take a standard laptop on a polar expedition or into the middle of a desert and getting your laptop serviced isn't exactly going to be an option you can exercise. And thanks to our good friend Murphy odds are it will break at the least convenient time possible.
Ruggedized laptops aren't for office workers. They are for people who work very far from climate controlled offices.
I dunno man, I'd rather buy a notebook from a company that knows how to make things rugged, verses a company that makes VCR's and questionable quality audio products.
A Vet turned History teacher had a saying on his door...
A computer with a bullet hole in it is a paperweight.
A map with a bullet hole in it is still a map.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
I work for a small police department, and did considerable research before choosing the Toughbook. They're certainly not made for speed, and they're heavy and ugly. But they're not made for that, they're made to take the abuse that is almost inevitable in the hands of people who are, shall we say, not exactly delicate flowers.
Before actually mounting these computers in our cruisers, I dropped the Toughbook while holding it above my head (I'm about 5'10"), I punched the back of the screen (only succeeded in giving myself a bloody knuckle), poured hot coffee on the keys, and generally did things you would REALLY not want to do to your laptop. They took it with just little scratches here and there, but no issue other than cosmetic.
One thing I did find is was that, of course, the screen is tough but it's still a laptop screen. The clamps used to mount the laptops on a swing arm in the cars goes slightly over the sides of the Toughbook. If the screen is slammed hard, that can actually cause a crack. Fortunately I'd paid the extra dosh for a better warranty covering such things, and was able to remind the officers that they need to be aware of that issue.
Dells offerings are really GOOD laptops, and not bad if you need rugged, but not insanely durable. I finally settled on the Toughbook not just because of the abuse I put them through, or just from asking other local PDs what they used. One of my users, a recent hire only a year or so out of the Army Rangers, told me that the Toughbook are what they jumped out of aircraft with. The abuse a grizzled old geek like myself can throw at a computer is pretty much NOTHING like what an Army Ranger could do.
So far, the TBs have been worth every penny we spent.
...and my aging cat urinated on the keyboard...
Some years ago my cat urinated on my Apple powerbook. It never worked again. There were no Apple stores then so I had to take it to CompUSA, again and again and again.
It was Toast!
Looks like Dell wins the pissing contest!
Actually, if you look at the OP's history, his posts are always followed by an AC message asking it to be modded up. Either a big coincidence, or Trisexualpuppy is trying to draw attention and upmods to his own posts.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
my aging cat, may he rest in peace, urinated on the keyboard
That is how that line should have read.
This reminds me of a trip I took once with a federal sales person who used to work with IBM. Around 2000-2001 he was working with some section of the Marines and trying to sell them some thinkpads. They were non-rugged, but had to hold up to certain standards just in case they ever were in use on/around a war zone.
After telling them about the tests they did, etc, one of the officers asks if he can try something with the demo model they brought, to see if he could break it. The sales guy tells him to go ahead, if it breaks, no problem, we're trying to sell you what you need, figuring the guy is just going to drop it.
Instead, the officer walks over to the laptop, pulls out a knife and rams it through the screen and pulls it out. Other than a hole where he shoved it it, the laptop kept going, no problem.
I put on my robe and wizard hat..
You may find that with such a blemish, any AppleCare warranty support is now void.
My brother's MBP had a video card with a known issue where some times the video card would not output any video (either to the LCD or to the display port). He had the exact model number which experiences this problem, and supposedly every MBP with that model video card is affected and eligible for free repair even out of warranty.
He took them up on it (he was still under AppleCare, having bought the extended version), but because there was a dent in his case, they claimed the video card was damaged by the dent, and they further claimed they would not be able to repair the damage without replacing the entire chassis. I had seen the dent, it was very small; more of a scratch and a dimple - there's no way this was responsible.
What should have been a free repair cost him $800.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
No need - a little red light comes on somewhere in Cupertino and Steve picks up a phone and calls a team of highly trained ninjas to deal with it.
Steve: Hello ninjas?
Ninjas: Yes?
Steve: A non-Apple user just dropped one of our brethren's Macbooks.
Ninjas: Again?
Steve: Yup.
Ninjas: We're on it. You want the head in a jar again for your collection?
Steve: Sure, can you maybe grab his liver too... you never know...
Disclaimer: I am an Apple user, so this is probably not accurate. I'll bet Phil Schiller handles the ninja calls.
Unless it's an IBM mainframe, in which case a mainframe with a bullet hole is still a mainframe, just with one CPU showing a fault condition. Redundancy is a virtue whenever bullets are involved, whether you're the shooter or the owner of the target.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
And lest you forget, there's always more pee where that came from.
some years ago, my backpack's zipper failed and thus unloaded my 15" iBook down a whole flight of stairs; my heart stopped as I watched it bounce up and down every couple of steps (on its edges), all the way to the ground floor!
Once I unbent the hook that would normally lock it when closed, it worked just like new!
Or someone like myself, who wants to buy exactly ONE laptop that will last forever, and which I do not wish to have to protect like a newborn infant.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I don't think they even showed the whole test, or they did it wrong. The MIL-STD-810 drop test is actually 26 total drops. Once on each face, edge, and corner.
They didn't show if they actually measure 4' or just eye-balled it. Also, they were dropping onto some kind of surface, but not directly on the ground. That can have a large influence on the amount of energy transferred to the laptop during the test. Where I work when we do a drop test we do it on a bare concrete floor, and there is fixture to ensure the exact height is used.
Unfortunately, no amount of "ruggedizing" can prevent obsolescence.
Dark Reflection
They've typically got a metal case
Not just generic steel or aluminum, Toughbooks have titanium cases, to keep them light, stiff, and strong. Now you can get a Toughbook with a solid state drive, and the biggest weakness to the system is eliminated. With an SSD on board, it becomes extremely difficult to damage the laptop. You have to hit something so hard you literally tear the components off the motherboard (very hard to do) or overcome the strength of the titanium (which is not thin, btw) to crush it. Even then you're more likely to damage the LCD than anything, and destroying the hard drive would be nearly impossible.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Not just generic steel or aluminum, Toughbooks have titanium cases, to keep them light, stiff, and strong.
Magnesium, actually. Just as tough, half the price. Titanium would have to be machined, which would double the price of the toughbook just in machine time. Magnesium can be formed and stamped.
Of all the Universal Constants, here's one I know: Nice guys finish last
Magnesium's also easy to injection mold or die cast. There are some difficulties in safely melting magnesium (as this amazing picture showing a Volkswagen magnesium casting foundry burning in 2006 demonstrates) but it's far easier to do casting processes with magnesium, which melts at a very reasonable temperature, than it is with titanium, which destroys mold materials. Titanium also burns fiercely, and goes so far as to burn in a pure nitrogen environment, the only metal that will do so. Magnesium's also cheaper. However, it isn't anywhere nearly as tough. Titanium has yield strengths on the order of 40,000-140,000 pounds per square inch, while magnesium's more in the 20,000-50,000psi range. However, since magnesium's like 1/3 the density of titanium you can put a *lot* more magnesium into a structure for the same weight, and since stiffness rises as an exponential function of cross-section, you get hellaciously stiff, light structures that are reasonably tough.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.