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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!
Think of it as laptop insurance. Just in case. Maybe you won't need it, but maybe you will. Also probably cheaper to pay the ToughBook premium than replacing your laptop a year earlier.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
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
Did *you* RTFA? They stated quite clearly that the Dell had issues with water ingress, including water getting into a battery compartment that isn't isolated from the mainboard.
Yes, it worked again after they let it dry out for a day... but that's bad.
I volunteer somewhere that bought one of these Dells, and honestly I have no idea why they needed a ruggedized laptop.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
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
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?
At my job, we use these toughbooks in extreme conditions -- think arctic/antarctic desert and Middle Eastern deserts. Especially in the latter, the toughbook excels because all of the ports are blocked against FOD [foreign objects and debris] -- namely, if there's a sandstorm that kicks up, the sand can't enter the unit in any way.
In addition, try using a regular laptop while riding on a humvee through rocky terrain. No way that disk lasts, whereas the toughbook disks are made to absorb the shock and vibration.
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.
my aging cat, may he rest in peace, urinated on the keyboard
That is how that line should have read.
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.