- Sunday, 22 November 2009
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Most novice programmers seldom see the necessity of drawing a flowchart - Rodney Zaks - Programming the Z80
Dell launches a multitouch rugged laptop
DELL HAS announced its first rugged laptop with a multitouch display.
The Latitude XT2 XFR is Dell's thinnest and lightest rugged touchscreen laptop, measuring 1.2 inches (38.1 millimeters) at its thinnest point, and weighs 5.4 pounds (2.45 kilograms) with a four-cell battery and solid-state drive.
It is designed to meet the requirements of customers in the military, police, border patrol, field service organisations, factory fulfilment and first responders. The US military standard it's been awarded means that it will survive three foot drops, as well as rain, dust and temperatures from minus 10 degrees to 140 degrees Fahrenheit.
But its big selling point though is the 12.1-inch four-finger-input multitouch display so you can pinch, zoom and twist your way through apps and docs. Presumably while chasing down a gang of border jumpers or paragliding over the desert with people shooting at you, or something.
The laptop comes with Microsoft's Windows Vista OS for now, but the recently released Windows 7 will be added as an option "very soon" according to a Dell spokesperson.
It's powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo SU9600 chip, which runs at 1.6GHz and includes 3MB of cache. It supports up to 5GB of RAM with solid-state drive storage of up to 160GB. With a six-cell battery the laptop can run for up to six hours. µ
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shouldn't it be using Linux? Is the military really that retarded, that they'd trust a Steve(Jobs or Ballmer) to keep them secure? If they would use Linux, they wouldn't have to trust ANYONE, they could delve into and tweak the source code to their heart's content.
The stock windows distribution lasts a few seconds before it is either removed or clamped down. You don't have time to be fiddling with linux source code when the people you are designing for are getting shot at:)
Soldiers like stuff that they can use without much training, so they prefer windows which they have used before - same with UAVs which they now control with Xbox controllers.
The key factors for a decent rugged laptop would be standards compliance - see Panasonic Toughbook which is the benchmark for military spec laptops. If it has MIL-810F compliance and it is cheaper than the Toughbooks (CF-19 in this case) then we will buy them.
Bottom line - if you don't know what you are talking about, don't comment.
That sad I'm interested in rugged laptops - not necessarily military grade, just tougher than your ordinary consumer units and of course cheap and reliable :D
Pointers..?
Quality
Performance
Cost
Pick any 2 and expect the 3rd to be a horrible trade off ;)