ultraportable, rugged laptops?

[Deviant Ollam]

hey all,

well, the little Fujitsu LifeBook that many of you have seen during presentations of mine was nicked by some scoundrel this past weekend. thankfully i didn't have anything on it which wasn't backed up, and all sensitive data was on a psycho-encrypted volume. the situation still burns my fucking balls, of course. but, anyway... this thread pertains to what replacement i will end up looking for in the event that the phildalelphia PD do not locate it.

i loved the LifeBook because of it's small size and weight (10" x 8" profile, ~3 lbs.) and the fact that it still had an optical drive. i have to admit, however, that the little guy really couldn't handle rough treatment. the plastic housing cracked here and there and the disc drive wouldn't stay shut all the time.

in considering what to go for next, i've been remarkably unable to find many vendors who offer a laptop this small that is durable.

there's the Panasonic Toughbook W-Series which is pretty nice, except for the fact that it has the most ridiculous looking touchpad i've ever seen. (i don't know if someone's supposed to use it to control a pointing device or to check their makeup)

the folks at Durabook have their shit pretty together, but they don't offer any really small models. (i think their smallest was about 10" x 12")

does anyone here own or has anyone seen a laptop that might fit the bill for me? size and an optical drive are paramount in my quest... ruggedness is sort of second place. any suggestions would be appreciated. i'm guessing that most of these will be in the ~$2000 range (the ones i've turned up so far are) but if there's some sort of sweet surplus products out there which might work, i'd be glad to hear of them.

[geekgurl]

We purchased several of the Panasonic's here and I have to say I have been sorely disappointed. I've had 1 cracked case, 1 cracked display, broken keyboards and the touchpad sucks. So far we have had 40% breakage on the ones we bought. Not to mention that their rma process to get them fixed sucks, they have been out up to 2 weeks being repaired.

I'll stick with the IBM thinkpads, all in all they have been pretty solid and take a beating pretty well.

Now if you want ultra rugged weight be damned the Itronix gobooks kick ass. Our field service guys are getting them slowly (they are quite expensive) and they can basically play football with them in the rain and they are just fine.

No experience with the Durabooks though. I might have to check them out a little closer and see if they might be a possiblity in my budget for our more destuctive employees next year.

gg

[Kibble]

I've used the Panasonic CF18 for work (i'm an engineer by the way) and i've had no trouble with the machine. However, I do feel that model has a very small keyboard and although it has a few tricks, it's not quite up to the job. The bluetooth that is in mine is very handy and the screen is good, but it just feels too small. The British Army use this same model and if it's good enough for them, you might like it too. Happy Hunting

[NeoSNightmarE]

I know someone that has one of the older toughbooks that looks like a briefcase with a computer inside. It's been pretty good for wardriving he tells me. I'll find out for sure next time I'm up in the NC area. But from what I understand it's like everything proof and the reviews on that aspect have been pretty concrete. As for laptops, I'm done for a while since my last laptop (HP something or other) got ran over by an SUV. That stung.

[Deviant Ollam]

I know someone that has one of the older toughbooks that looks like a briefcase with a computer inside.

indeed, that sounds like it would qualify as rugged enough, but it fails most gloriously on the second qualification of my search... that the laptop be an ultraportable (typically defined as under 5 to 6 lbs. in weight and less than 1½" thick. i further stated above that i was hoping to find one that didn't exceed profile size of about 8" x 10")

[converge]

how much of a 'nick' did this guy do?!? I have fallen in love with my p7010 and while I am slightly guarded of its well-being, I have gone so far as to take a tumble with it (6'5 280lb dude tumble) and it has yet to get marked outside of fingerprints on its very pretty but impressionable black top.

[Deviant Ollam]

how much of a 'nick' did this guy do?!?

'twas nicked in the british sense... not the yankee one.

gone, she is... not merely marred.

[NeoSNightmarE]

indeed, that sounds like it would qualify as rugged enough, but it fails most gloriously on the second qualification of my search... that the laptop be an ultraportable (typically defined as under 5 to 6 lbs. in weight and less than 1½" thick. i further stated above that i was hoping to find one that didn't exceed profile size of about 8" x 10")

Ahh ok. Good luck with the search. Should be fairly easy once you get the ball rolling with some models that cover the criteria that you are persuing.

[Deviant Ollam]

Should be fairly easy once you get the ball rolling with some models that cover the criteria that you are persuing.

** whacks head into desk **

ahem, yes... models that cover my criteria were the topic of this thread. thus far, i am aware of maybe two that even come close (The Fujitsu LifeBook-P which i had but was stolen and the Panasonic Toughbook-W which is tough but looks retarded).

i was inquiring as to whether or not people knew of any other options that i hadn't found... not whether finding models that meet my criteria would be a good first step for me. i'm already pretty certain that's the direction i want to head with all this.

[Astronut413]

im not too sure on how rugged they are, but the Sony VAIO TX Series is really small and pretty BA. I've used one in person and they're really sweet, but like you said you need something thats rugged. Sonys dont seem like they would be too tough, but you never know.

Link

[geekgurl]

Have you looked at the IBM X Series notebooks? I actually have one that is 5 years old now (passed down to my 11 year old son) and that thing is super light weight, small form factor and takes a good beating.

[converge]

The only units that I could find in those dimensions were Sony, Fujitsu, Panasonic, Apple, and Dell. Here is the sum of months of searching and deliberating:

The Dell almost won me because of the cheap power I could toss into it.. but its casing has a plastic bar that extends too high near the spacebar .. instead of hitting space my thumb would always hit the plastic. The Toughbook looked interesting, but ugly, heavy and generally less powerful than anything else on the market. The Sony proved more pricey for the same or lesser features than Fujitsu .. and of course, the Apple is notoriously breakable; it is also growingly sub-par in technology now that it is aging. IBM was an obvious consideration, but I could not get the size to power and price ratio that made sense for me.

[Deviant Ollam]

Have you looked at the IBM X Series notebooks? I actually have one that is 5 years old now (passed down to my 11 year old son) and that thing is super light weight, small form factor and takes a good beating.

i have looked at them... and silly as it may sound there's one huge detracting factor that i can't get around... i like a touchpad on my laptops. i hate the little "nipple" mouse pointer or whatever it's called. does IBM offer the X series either way? if so, maybe i'll check them out.