However, closer inspection revealed the touchscreen wasn’t responding. Even after a couple of hours of it being switched on it still remained oblivious to my finger prods. Weary at the thought of another review sample switchover – and no doubt a few raised eyebrows from Dell – I was relieved when it sprang back into life after a few more hours at room temperature.
Wish you were here? The XT2 XFR on its hols
The ‘5’ part of the laptop’s IP-54 certification means it’s protected from dust, while the ‘4’ indicates it can cope with water splashing against any side of the chassis (rainfall being a prime example). For once I was glad of some heavy rain and promptly took the laptop outside to give its water-resistant credentials a test. A good dosing later, I dried the laptop off then checked inside the various waterproof covers that keep the ports safe – all were free of water and the laptop worked perfectly.
Benchmark Tests
PCMark Vantage Results
Longer bars are better
Longer bars are better
Battery Life Results
Battery life in minutes
Longer bars are better
Performance isn’t key here, but no laptop review is complete without a few graphs. The SU9600 processor managed to achieve a respectable overall score in PCMark Vantage, and the SSD helped boost the HDD score to 20,784, which is well above what traditional drives get. 3DMark Vantage wouldn’t run, but given the integrated graphics it’s safe to assume the score wouldn’t have flattered.
COMMENTS
Virtualization
Run those tools in a virtual machine, perhaps?
XP Pro
I cannot understand why Dell would not use Windows 7 Pro. As a previous poster send WIndows XP is very important to the corporate market and will remain so for another few years. 7 Pro and Ultimate includes Virtual PC meaning any XP program will work without any problem, alhough not XP drivers, ultities and AV software.
I have to say though that in this market the Panasonic Toughbooks are the benchmark for fully rugged laptops. And for semi-rugged laptops I would very strongly recommend the new HP Elitebooks.
3hours??!!
The battery is woeful! my toughbook can manage 7hours with display on full brightness, wifi on and several internet pages running...
The XFR's are nice looking but after a few toughbooks, I wouldnt choose anything else! - Ive thrown an old CF-27 over head height, in the garden and it apart from dislodging a pcmcia card carried on working :D
VAIO VGN
I've dropped my vaio about three feet onto concrete, spilled wine on the keyboard and additionally in the dvd drive (don't ask), i've used it in the rain and it's still happily ticking along after four years of abuse additionally it only weights 1.2 kilograms and didn't come with the pricetag that the tablet does.
32Bit
"Other features include 802.11n wireless, Gigabit Lan, an ambient light sensor, fingerprint reader and Windows 7 Professional 32-bit."
Why for the love of all that is holy is anyone shipping NEW machines with 32 Bit versions of Win7?
I mean for that matter why did M$ even MAKE a 32Bit version available? It's not like there are any machines running with 32Bit only CPUs still out there that could run Windows7 comfortably FFS
Or maybe they WANT people running P4 1.6Ghz installing their OS, so that they get pissed off with it being so slow, and go out to buy a new computer, which nets M$ another License?
It is baffling.
