Performance away from the mains is more important on a device such as this, and the 42Wh six-cell battery managed a slightly disappointing one hour and 57 minutes when looping PCMark Vantage. Expect around three hours under normal use with the brightness at half mast.
Make sure the catches are done up before heading out in the rain
Verdict
The XT2 XFR obviously has a very niche market, but aside from its touch capabilities temporarily ceasing after its spell in the freezer, it appears as rugged as Dell claims it to be. Of course, all that protection comes at a price, but it is in line with the competition, most notably Panasonic’s Toughbook CF-19. It would be nice if it were a bit lighter, especially since it’s designed to be used in the hands, but overall it’s a decent ruggedised tablet-style laptop. ®
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Dell Latitude XT2 XFR ruggedised laptop
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.
