Rugged Laptop/Tablet Suggestions, 2010 Version?

robbievienna writes "I'm currently living in the Arabian desert. Typically, unless a building has been sealed against the elements, sand and dust get everywhere. I purchased a keyboard cover for one of my laptops, and noticed that there was more accumulation on the underside than the topside. I've had sand crunk up the guts of one laptop and one tablet (Nokia N810). My coworkers who are native to the region tend to trade out their technology every six to twelve months, but I don't want to migrate data and adjust to new hardware that frequently. I was wondering what suggestions people have for working in this type of environment — both for laptops and for tablets. For reference, I work in a pseudo-secured zone where computers (phones, etc.) are not permitted to have cameras. A DVD drive would be nice, but is unnecessary. The more USB ports, the better. The last time the question was posted on Slashdot was five years ago, so I'm presuming that there are new industry leaders."

Comments

EliteBook

[brad-x]

I've been using the HP EliteBook 8540w and it's been hard to destroy. I ran an HP demo unit through the mill too (dropped it from six feet on all corners, etc) - it's rated for military use, and I'm pretty sure it's one step below the ruggedized laptops you can get with armor plating.

Good Luck

[Anonymous Coward]

Depending on the exact timeframe you're looking at for the standard replacement cycle there vs. your total expected residency, you may be better off financially just going the replacement route and mitigating damage by keeping your N810 sealed in a Ziploc bag or something. Seriously, the last time I looked at prices for truly "ruggedized" equipment, I was floored and my wallet felt violated just by reading the prices.

Use a disposable laptop

[Anonymous Coward]

Try getting a cheap netbook, and just replace it when it dies.

but I don't want to migrate data and adjust to new hardware that frequently

Keep spares in sealed plastic bags so that you won't have to change hardware. For data, put everything (including O/S) on a rugged external hard drive. A single USB/firewire hard drive should be easier to protect than an entire computer.

Re:Use a disposable laptop

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Whether netbook or notebook, you'll probably want an SSD(hard drives have filters; but SSDs don't even breathe air). If you get some common, cheap model, (ideally with a an easily accessible drive location, not one of the epic deconstruction project ones), you should be able to just pop the SSD out of the dead unit and pop it in to the new one, boot and go. No real "migrating" or "adjusting" involved. You'll still want backups, of course, because SSDs can and do die; but, as long as your hardware stays the same, the only "migrating" you should have to do is a simple disk swap.

Buy two. Seal one in an airtight bag, with some dessicant packets, and put it back in its padded packaging, then stash it under your bed or in a closet or something. Use the other one. When it dies, or becomes excessively full of sand and flakiness, pull the drive out of it, blow any grit off, and put it in to #2. Boot #2 and order a third from the electronics site of your choice. When #3 arrives, seal it and store it until #2 dies.

Wasteful, sure; but you can easily repeat this procedure a fair few times before you equal the price of a single "rugged" notebook.

Re:Use a disposable laptop

[sadtrev]

Fine sand is a killer - it gets everywhere.

I used to work on powder processing instrumentation and regularly had to take laptop computers onsite to calibrate instruments. We used to use Dells with external IP-54 keyboards and masking tape over all the unused ports. On a few occasions I had to take a normal keyboard they didn't last more than a few keystrokes (I'd guess 20 per key before they failed).

This was lactose, coal, silica, calcium carbonate, etc. When we started work with metal powder we invested in proper IP54 laptops - no fan, membrane keyboard and rubber plugs on all the ports. Heavy, underpowered (800MHz PIII) but they worked. We looked at some "ruggedised" efforts but without the IP rating they were really just slightly less prone to drop damage.

Panasonic Toughbook

[Nimey]

They've got units that are rated for such harsh environments. They're not cheap, though.

Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW, I just spent a few weeks in the Moroccan Sahara and most of the natives who had laptops, had a Macbook

Re:Apple

[duk242]

It took one really good dust storm to fill my poor MacBook up with Dust (in Australia). Mind you, Apple repaired it under warranty because it was overheating, it's all good now.

get canned air and warranty

[InsertWittyNameHere]

I work in the construction industry and instruct our guys that work on site to blast the openings of their laptops/computers with canned air at least once a month.

I get them "spill proof" keyboards as those are sealed and keep things from getting deep in the keyboard. Just turn it upside down and shake it. Plus you can wash them if you really want them clean.

I find that there isn't much more you can do. The sand/dust causes extra wear and tear and the equipment will have to be replaced more often. I buy the "full coverage" warranty for equipment that will primarily be used on construction sites and it pays for itself when you constantly have to replace burnt out PSUs, video cards and CPUs that overheat and die due to clogged fans..

Rugged Notebooks

[Island Admin]

A quick google came up with the following website: http://www.ruggednotebooks.com/
They have notebooks with sealed keyboards, low reflectivity (especially greate for the desert conditions :) ).

Field notebooks

[juventasone]

There are models that meet MIL-STD-810. Have you seen any of these tried in your environment? Some of them have already been mentioned such as the Panasonic Toughbooks and HP Elitebooks.

Re:Field notebooks

[Telecommando]

Another vote here for Toughbooks. Where I work, we've given Toughbooks to all the field personnel and have no regrets. Our crews work outside in difficult environments and while I've seen HDs fail, broken keyboards and a couple of smashed screens (hit by something while open), for the most part they're almost indestructible.

Last fall we had a field engineer set a CF-30 on a backhoe and walk over to his truck to look for a drawing. When he came back, the backhoe had moved and his Toughbook was apparently somewhere in a trench that had been filled in.

I went out to the site that afternoon with another tech and an access point configured with a SSID that we knew the missing CF-30 would try to connect to. We slowly drove along the trench with a directional antenna pointed at it until the AP indicated that the missing laptop had tried to connect. We had the backhoe driver gently dig out several feet of trench before we found it. Disassembled, cleaned and reassembled it, it's still in service.

Dell Outlet

[copponex]

Dell XFRs start around $1,600 from the Outlet, with Core 2 Duos, no webcam, and designed to operate in the conditions you describe. I don't think they're quite as rugged as the Panasonic Toughbooks, but you can just buy two XFRs for the same price and switch the hard drives out if one breaks.

http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/topics/global.aspx/arb/online/en/InventorySearch?c=us&cs=28&l=en&s=dfb

Re:dust filter bags

[tomhudson]

What about using a computer dust filter bag? You could cut a window for typing and seal around the keyboard cover. You could also create flaps for the optical drive and ports, though an extension hub might make more sense and provide for a tighter seal.

Put the laptop in a place where dust won't be such a problem (like in a bar fridge) and run cables for mouse, keyboard, and external video. bar fridges are ~$100, and not only will it keep your laptop cool, but your Dew as well.

Or just say you're "sandboxing" your code.

SSD not spinny disk

[olddoc]

The 2 things that fail on computers are hard disks and fans. I wonder if a really low power cpu could run without sucking dust in if a cpu cooling fan wasn't needed much.

Oddball Suggestion...

[jjoelc]

Stretch a ladies nylon stocking over the whole thing... This will take some experimenting to figure out the exact best method (maybe one over the base, one over the screen...), but has the advantages of:
-being extremely cheap
-easily removed/replaced
-thin/flexible/transparent enough to cover the keyboard, and even the screen with
-should filter out the worst offender category of sand/dust without seriously impeding air flow
-will also cut down on glare and reflectivity

For $1 a try, I figure it is worth mentioning...

Re:Oddball Suggestion...

[girlintraining]

should filter out the worst offender category of sand/dust without seriously impeding air flow

Desert dust is distinct from the grains of sand you're accustomed to. It's been worn down to nearly microscopic, is highly abrasive, very light, and nylons won't keep that kind of stuff out. And even if they could, you're obstructing the airflow to critical components which will overheat. He did mention desert correct? Deserts are (as a rule) quite hot.

You need purpose-built tools to work in that environment.

A fan-less computer

[Kozmik]

You can spend a lot of money and buy a ruggedized laptop ( panasonic toughbooks are the best known examples and they have a range of models from semi ruggedized to fully ruggedized ).

However the feature you want from the ruggedized unit is the fact that fully ruggedized laptops are setup to be fanless ( the better designed ones ). Fanless means they don't need to suck in air, which would need to be filtered, which then becomes a point of failure.

So for example most netbooks for example run an atom cpu that just needs a heatsink and no fan. That then eliminates the point of failure of the fan sucking in dust. There are desktop choices that are the same, underclocked or low power cpu's that don't produce enough heat to need more then a heatsink so can run fanless.

Re:Rome

[chill]

Uh...so he should crucify every native he sees until he no longer has a dust problem? Sir, your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

My Dell XPS survived a year in Kuwait & Afghan

[Fallon]

I've got a now 3ish year old Dell XPS M1710 laptop that survived living in Afghanistan for a year, Kuwait for a year & now a year or so back here in Colorado. Not light, but it did good as my gaming rig. I was in decent quality buildings for being down range, but pretty crappy & unsealed by U.S. standards. I've gone through 3-4ish power bricks for it, but I blame crappy generator power for that. And when the power bricks died, the laptop would only operate in reduced power mode (throttle CPU & not charge the battery), but would still run the laptop. Not bad for bouncing between 110v & 220v power of very dubious quality.

Blow it out frequently with a can of air & it should do pretty good.

Re:get a small netbook...

[AndGodSed]

Can't. He laminated his camera and glued the lens cover shut...

Re:iPad is still better.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It certainly won't be explicitly "rugged" in any serious way, nor will there be any warranty express or implied, concerning dropping it; but it wouldn't at all surprise me if it ends up being pretty durable against ingress of sand purely as a side effect of Apple's aesthetic preferences.

Steve and his guys hate slots, buttons, ports, battery bays, or anything that breaks up the polished outer surface or suggests that the user might be able to do anything more invasive than plug a set of headphones in. Consequently, their designs aren't terribly easy for stuff to get into(or once it gets in, out of, as anybody who has ever had to deal with the "single speck of dust/crud/eyelash hair that somehow got behind the iPod screen cover" problem can attest).

I think people are over looking the obvious choice

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are in the middle east you should consider native technologies.

The abacus of course.

The beads on most modern abici are designed to last hundreds of years.

New leaders?

[CohibaVancouver]

so I'm presuming that there are new industry leaders

Not really...It's a tough nut to crack, so the market leaders in the ruggedized notebook sector tend to get there and say there. As others have said, your best (& costliest) options are Panasonic and Itronix (General Dynamics).

out of your box solutions including OS X

[arete]

I realize you asked for a ruggedized laptop. However, that everyone else replaces theirs regularly points to the idea that you should consider that as a serious alternative and not discard it out of hand. I called this 'out of your box' because they're all doing it, and you're rejecting it a priori. I see basically three legitimate issues with this solution:

a) maintaining a consistent interface for you to be used to
b) providing easy data migration to the replacement device
c) total cost of multiple non-ruggedized devices compared to the realistic lifespan of ruggedized ones.

I'm not suggesting that my parent post had the right thoughts in mind, but Apple does provide surprisingly good, quick and easy solutions for a&b in OS X and the iPhone; I would expect the iPad to continue this.

Apple is not historically great about 'c', but that sand environment is hard even on the modestly ruggedized ones so it's not impossible.

Of course, I imagine their are .e.g Linux distros with good solutions to a & b and other laptop vendors who tend to have a consistent interface.

Of course you might need to account for shipping, purchasing, processing, or environmental costs in 'c', but even on the environmental front it's not a given that one device is better than 3, esp if it gets recycled well (many parts of the sandworn one will still work, and it'll be early enough that those, minus your HD, are reasonable used replacement parts in the right shop...)

Re:out of your box solutions including OS X

[BobPaul]

Any linux distro would be good at A & B. Just install your distro, rsync your /home to the new computer, and reboot. Then all you need to do is re-install your software and, presumably, that's all in the repos. Anything not in the repos should be kept in deb/rpm/tgz files in your home folder somewhere.

Outside of that, about the only thing you might want are backups of configs in /etc that you modified.

Re:Rome

[alexx]

Be fair, we rarely crucify the natives.

OLPC

[FreeBSD evangelist]

The One Laptop Per Child program (I have an original XO) builds for that exact environment.

http://laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/index.shtml
http://laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/specs.shtml

There is a lightweight version of Windows they can run if you can't make it with "Sugar". You can find them on eBay.

AMREL Rocky

[JungleBoy]

I use an AMREL Rocky notebook in my field work. Hop out of the helicopter and toss it on the rocks while you unload other gear. Rain? No problem. Dust? No problem, it's completely sealed. The bottom is actually a finned heat sink bonded to the CPU. Since it has no fans/vents, it is a bit under-clocked. But it's awesome. http://www.amrel.com/rugged-computers/default.asp