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The $5,600 Tablet
An anonymous reader writes "Tablets have come a long way in the past few years, and it has become possible to find a capable device for under $200. But what about the tablets pushing toward the high end of the spectrum? Xplore Technologies sells a line of tablets that top out at $5,600. Who on earth would pay that much? The military, of course. 'The DMSR models both have handles and are encased in tough protective covers. They can be dropped more than 2 meters onto a plywood floor and 1.2 meters onto concrete, and can operate in temperatures between -30 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit (-34 to 60 degrees Celsius). They've been tested to the U.S. military's tough MIL-STD-810G standard for extreme conditions. The tablets run Windows and come with Intel's latest Core i5 or i7 Haswell processors. Solid-state drive options extend to 480GB. ... They display images at 1024 x 768 resolution. That's less than some cheaper Windows tablets, but Xplore claims to offer excellent LCD visibility in sunlight thanks to a display luminescence of 1,300 NITS. The tablets have internal fans but can still run for up to eight-and-a-half hours on a 10-cell battery, Xplore said. They weigh a hefty 2.4 kilograms.'"
I know plenty people who need their smartphone rugged like this.
I handled procurement of a few of these for a client two years ago. They are impressive for their sturdiness and resistance to the environment, and I was able to view the screen very well even in the mid-day sunlight. The model I played with was everything the summary described and a bit more. It was submersible for up to two hours in salt or fresh water as long as the ports were sealed with the silicone port glands.
It is an impressive device for what it provides to people on the move in challenging environments.
If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law;
Bear Grylls would open it with a coconut and a shoelace, pee in it and then survive a week by eating its insides.
Curiously yours, crip.
But are they bulletproof?
So it runs Windows? Who cares if it survives a fall or in Antarctica, as soon as you connect it to the net it will be infested with malware and virii!
I rock a Panasonic Toughbook laptop and a Panasonic Toughbook tablet.
Toughpad FZ-A1 for my android tablet and a toughbook 31 I carry for work more money in tablet and laptop than most of you have every owned in your car. I work in very dusty and dirty environments programming smartbuildings while they are under construction.
The number of people that whine the ,"OMG why did you buy that expensive thing" I then drop it on it's edge from 4 feet and then ask if their Nexus 7 is "the exact same thing" that they drop their on the edge right now. I own a nexus 7 they break if you look at them funny. I can read the screens better in direct sunlight, consumer tablets are unusable out in the direct sun.
Note: panasonic is a lot cheaper than this botique brand, and the Govt uses them on a regular basis.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Nice advertisement you got there.
Rather then talk about the technicalities behind why and how modern day hardware has allowed us to build a reasonably specced ruggedized system (there have always been rugged computers, but they usually came at a cost- both a high price, and significantly lower speed then what you could get as a consumer or business grade system), you're blasting us with this obvious advertisement that really doesn't give a shit about that and just blabbers on about this one particular company and their awesome piece of hardware.
Nice. Real nice. Good to know "news for nerds" can mean "advertisements for nerds" as well.
Will it blend?
Its impressive when a computer does it.
Took a class in computer reliability in the face of all sorts of problems, and the instructor was a bit taken aback when those of us from the DoD started talking about having the computer system take a 50 caliber round. It wasn't a failure mode he was familiar with.
I would guess that there is a big difference between "guaranteed to survive a 1.2m drop onto concrete" or even "99% chance of surviving the drop" (which is probably what they offer) and the anecdotal "I dropped shit from longer distances and they were fine".
My S3 was seriously damaged by a much smaller drop. You can be lucky or unlucky with such devices. Military doesn't like that :)
What's the point of making a rugged system that can survive all that and then putting Windows on it?
Oh, they run Windows... nevermind. Carry on.
For that price, you could buy 50 regular Android tablets and luggage to keep them in. Just grab a new tablet when you break one.
That these tablets never leave the truck or tank because they are heavy and very likely not all that usable.
We tooled around with a general dynamics tablet with similar capabilities and it wasn't good for anything except blocking bullets.
1.2 Meters onto concrete or 2 Meters onto wood is not extreme by and standard, extreme would mean it could take a 40 cal bullet right to the screen and not break, or drop from 100 meters onto concrete. Also a tablet running Windows for field use dangerous on its own right. I would really hope I'm not the solder in the field who has to deal with blue screens on the battle field.
The US Army now favors commodity Android smartphones with well designed cases over tablets like these.
http://www.army.mil/article/10...
$3000+ tablets that weigh several pounds do not make sense in many roles.
What does make sense is $200 - $400 Android smartphones/tablets with waterproof shock cases that weigh less than a pound with better battery life.
but ... can they be operated with bloody, grimy or gravelly fingers?
Don't get me wrong, surviving a 2 meter drop is pretty good compared to most consumer products these days. Still.. I would expect much much better from a $5600 tablet marketed to the military. It should at least survive a couple of stories!
I own a motion computing tablet. Their current model meets the same 810G standard, appears to have the same features available and costs about half.
"The tablets run Windows"
The military is getting ripped off.
missile_guidance.exe has stopped working.
A problem caused the program to stop working correctly.
Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
"The durability keeps maintenance costs down, and the company provides a three-year warranty."
They must have had a lot of maintenance costs.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Considering that a .50 caliber round can be fired into an engine block to disable a vehicle, I can't imagine what type of ruggedization a computer could have to prevent that mode of failure while remaining practical. Sure, you would want the data center walls to be able to withstand such a shot, but the computer itself?
Imagine an aircraft with multiple computers networked throughout the airframe. The task is then to detect which of the computers has ceased to exist (because of the 0.50), and shift all its functionality to one or more of the other computers, without missing a beat since these computers may be doing really time-critical stuff like controlling airfoils...
I'm sorry but super VGA is not acceptable in a five thousand dollar tablet. Most Windows software made in the last ten years won't even work at that resolution. I don't care if you can read it under molten lava, if the resolution is so low as to break the device's functionality there's no justification for purchasing it.
In that case, the mode of failure isn't particularly relevant, is it.
Only in the fact that it surprised the instructor when he found out that when we said that a computer got shot, we were literal, not figurative.