Rugged Laptops

redbeard writes "The NYTimes (requires free login) has an interesting write up on "ruggedized" laptops, these things can withstand tornados, being run over by trucks and being submerged in water, among other things. Panasonic is planing on a scaled-down line for consumer use, kind of like the Hummer vs. HUMVEE." If it lasts more than 6 mos in my hands, I consider it rugged...

Comments

I've worked with one...

[InThane]

...back when I was in IS at a local public utility company. The survey engineers would take the things out with them, run over them with trucks, drop them from telephone poles, and just generally pound the crap out of them.

We only ever had one fail, and that was because it got hit straight on by a pickaxe. Went right through one side of the case and out the other. The casing does great against distributed pressure, but it don't do to good against impaling attacks...

This is supposed to be *new* ?

[GMontag]

Excellent comparison, read on.

This time 4 years ago I was working on a US Army vehicle maintenance project, using the Panasonic CF-44.

All hardware was off-the-shelf. The idea to use the CF-44 was from their use by geologists and in the oil industry (BP was already using them, as I recall).

The model we used was an i486-66, 8meg(?) RAM, forgot HDD size, 2 PC slots, hot-swappable battery/floppy bay, plus a 2x CD tucked under the flip up keyboard. Had a kewell trackball pointer and a titanium top (the bottom of case was plastic).

These machines were issued to mechanics in Army motorpools, along with barand new "electronic technical manuals", i.e., maintenance manuals on CD. The computer was the vehicle to bring the new manual format into the motorpool.

The first major indication that we had picked the correct hardware was... a mechanic knocked a running Panasonic off the hood of a HUMMWV and it lived, no damage.

However, they were not Officer proof. Later a Lt. dropped a power supply into a lake, he had to buy a new one.

This Powerbook DID survive a tornado

[webslacker]

The article's over at Ogrady's.

Too bad they didn't mention this one in the NY Times article.