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Getac B300 rugged laptop

No mucking about with this hard-boiled hardware

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Review This laptop is squarely aimed at those who find themselves biding their time waiting for a Sahara sandstorm to pass, or need to check email while hanging upside down from an offshore oil rig.

The first impression is that this thing looks like it should come with handcuffs, like one of those top secret briefcases only seen in movies. The silver-grey magnesium alloy chassis and rubber protrusions do nothing to disguise the take any punishment nature of the device.

Getac B300 rugged notebook

Getac's B300: hardcore, heavy and high-priced

To help make carrying it a heck of a lot easier, there's a retractable handle on the front, which can be folded back to keep it out of the way during use. The keyboard and trackpad are also designed for use in less than ideal conditions.

Unlike the recently reviewed E100 tablet PC, which is designed for portability, the B300 is not light. Weighing in at 3.56kg, it's a hefty device. Although quite heavy, the weight will be offset by the lightness of your wallet after forking out a minimum of £1600 ($3500) for the thing. The configuration of our review unit would set you back around £2468 ($4690)

Every port and opening is sealed to protect it from the elements. Even the fingerprint reader below the keyboard has a slide cover.

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Latest Comments

@AC1 and AC2

"It sounds like it's got an ordinary hard disk. Wouldn't a SSD be more rugged?"

That might be the case, but a lot of this kit is designed to work with datalogging equipment etc. which probably works better with older H/W (hence the serial ports)

"for that sort of money you could buy three or four standard ones, and replace your lappy every year when it gets trashed."

Picture the scene, your in your tent in the arctic wastes, and your cheap laptop gives up the ghost. Who's going to courier you a replacement?

Another possible reason for using the case as a heatsink might be to keep the batteries warm and prolong battery life.

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Anonymous Coward

Very nice, but...

for that sort of money you could buy three or four standard ones, and replace your lappy every year when it gets trashed.

I bet it wouldn't survive the abuse I saw one laptop receive, it was an architect's Tosh Libretto (ancient Eee-pc alike) that had a trowel's worth of wet plaster, along with the trowel, dropped on it from about 20 ft overhead. I don't think it worked too well after that...

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Hard disk

It sounds like it's got an ordinary hard disk. Wouldn't a SSD be more rugged?

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