3 Rugged Notebooks Take a Beating

bsk_cw writes "Brian Nadel got a chance to try to destroy three 'fully rugged' notebooks and get paid for it — Computerworld had him drop, spray, drown, bake, shake, and freeze notebooks from General Dynamics Itronix, Getac, and Panasonic. All three suffered some damage, but only the Getac M230 actually died as a result. Brian made videos of the tests (which were apparently done in his home, including his kitchen)."

Re:Obligatory....

[PawNtheSandman]

I'd like to see the same test done to Justin Long.

Control group?

[Anonymous Coward]

This doesn't seem to have any value unless you compare them to normal notebooks. It's just as important to know if buying any "rugged" notebook is worth it.

I heard a few years ago that someone ran over his Powerbook G4 with a truck and it survived. I'd love to see how a Macbook Pro would compare to these "rugged" notebooks.

What kind of drop test is that?

[devnullkac]

All the drop tests in the video showed the units being dropped onto a soft mat. Where's the drop onto the tile floor? Where's the drop onto parking lot asphalt? From a moving rental car? Landing under the wheels?

Tiny Market

[MozeeToby]

The market is growing quickly. In 2007, with sales of 575,000 systems, rugged notebooks made up only about 1% of the global notebook market. However, Krebs forecasts growth for rugged systems to top 11% annually, with sales reaching 879,000 systems in 2011.

So, they expect it to grow rapidly from 1% of the market all the way up to... 1.5% of the market over the next 3 years. Wooo!

Re:Print link - avoid 6 pages of ads

[X0563511]

As stupid and annoying as going through 6 ad-filled pages, that is entirely the publisher's choice to do, and working around it would be, while maybe not wrong, not nice. They pay for their bandwidth, and you have to admit that going to slashdot without ad support, would suck.

Geek math error alert

[ciaohound]

Growth from 575,000 units to 879,000 units in three years represents 15 percent growth, when compounded annually. Are you in a market segment that is growing that fast?

Re:Print link - avoid 6 pages of ads

[JustShootThemAll]

I tend to think of ads as electronic warfare. "They" try to get as much exposure, I try to minimize it. That means they get to try their latest pop-up/pop-under schemes, and I get to sharpen my skills with AdBlockPlus, NoScript and a very broad hostfile to exclude ad-domains. I'm not interested in the crap they peddle. I'm also think it is morally wrong to let them enjoy ad-income. And if they can't exist without the money from ads, well, they are free to remove their website.

Re:Print link - avoid 6 pages of ads

[jdmetz]

Why this link is't published to start with is beyond me.

I think it is pretty obvious why the ad-filled link was published. Note that the article is from ComputerWorld, and the submitter was bsk_cw.

Nifty study, but only 25 degrees?

[Landshark17]

Why did he only test them to 25 degrees? I've had to take my laptop outside in colder. If I had to guess, I'd say the coldest I've taken my laptop (a Dell Inspiron 6000, hardly a tough laptop) out in is 10, and it's worked fine afterwards. If he's going to test the physical limits of these tough-books he should test them beyond everyday temperatures, especially since winter temperatures often get below 25 in many places.