After my daughter went through two laptops in high school (1st: "I closed a pen in it and broke the hinge" 2nd: "Dad! Someone ELSE knocked it off my desk") I found an ex-state-police toughbook, it even had a carrying handle. Plasma monochrome screen. Slow. But it ran all of the applications necessary for school.
Turns out it had a cool factor all it's own, and she really liked that laptop. She figured out she could neglect and abuse it. I even left the "property of " stickers from the state police on the thing, which gave it extra... something. It was still working when she gave it back to me before she went to college. I think I sold it for $100.
My son's first computer, back when he was 5 years old, was an old Panasonic CF-18 Toughbook that I bought from eBay for that purpose. The smaller keyboard was perfect for his little hands, and the computer survived countless drops, spills, and other incidents.
That was more than 10 years ago. He still has the laptop, the battery is long dead but it runs fine on AC power. Most of the time, it's used as a doorstop.
How could a monochrome screen work for a student? They typically have to look at assignments which often include color-coded graphs, data legends, etc.
Turns out that this isn’t the critical ability required to do well in school. I take your point, I’m sure the monochrome screen would be a challenge sometimes, but literally never the difference between success and failure at the high school level.
Relying excessively on colour is an accessibility no-go, and it also makes life harder for roughly 10% of colour blind people. Just dont be that stupid teacher and find better methods.
If anything is based solely in color for interpretation, it is not accessible. And has no place in a classroom. In Europe 10% of males have problems with colors. I figure there must be similar in the US.
I guess it depends on the school district. My kids were doing video and photo editing, using and creating spread sheets, using other software and accessing science web sites that I'm sure would be nearly impossible or extremely difficult to run on a monochrome screen.
Sure it will always be a boat anchor compared to a macbook air or a small chromebook but given his daughter laptop had a handle weight is less a factor if it removes the point of a protective sleeve + a backpack and you compare it with an entry level 15.6" laptop.
Oooh, I finally managed to coax my manager into getting me a ToughBook at a previous gig, after I'd churned through a Dell Mobile Workstation or two a year doing field work.
The ToughBook lasted years. True, the keyboard left a bit to be desired, the screen ghosted like you wouldn't believe and the colours were a bit, uh, off, not to mention ridiculous resolution - but killing the thing was essentially impossible.
It is the Land Cruiser of laptops. Expensive, sluggish, heavy, indestructible.
It even had a serial port (and, still does as an optional extra!)
Nowadays, I spend much less time in the field and use a T14. Has served me well thus far. Oh, and I can actually carry it around without thinking twice of it.
Dell's rugged line has a serial port standard AND gives you the option of having an additional serial port! Now if they would only make a 4 serial port version then we could hook up the jet engine software we have without an adapter....
There are some Dells that are quite indestructible as well. OTOH, it’s usually cheaper to let someone kill a couple laptops than to get a single rugged one. Plus, not all parts of the dead laptop are destroyed, so things like memory and solid-state storage can be easily transplanted to the next victim.
This is true, as long as a day in the field without a working laptop does not cost comparably to a new laptop. Imagine your laptop cracking and ceasing to work when the helicopter that brought you to the interesting location has just disappeared in the distance.
I used to use Thoughbooks every day at work while I was working as an EMT. I kinda have a love/hate relationship with them. I loved their ruggedness. They can fall from the stretcher to the ground, you can sit on them and they even work when it's raining on them. But everything else is not that great. The keyboard feels awful, the touchscreen sometimes didn't work (which was awful because the application was designed for touchscreens) and the trackpad is tiny compared to other laptops. Still they're better than the alternatives that other cities used. Documenting with pen and paper is exhausting, iPad aren't as rugged and their on screen keyboard is even worse and smartphones just don't appear that professional.
We had toughbooks at my agency, that were then replaced by surface (non-pro) tablets when we got bought out by AMR. They had to put out notices not to set the tablets on the back of the gurney. I bent one into a U shape with the strut lowering the head for a bariatric patient. Smushed it right between the monitor and O2. It was the most annoying piece of gear we had. Went from not having to worry about your computer at all to having to baby it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they cost more in the long run.
The AMR software, MEDS, was also worse as it forced you to use their limited fields instead of a full written narrative, surely for better analytics. The previous software (zoll?) made it much easier to rely on the narrative to accurately note that the patient who called for chest pain just had bronchitis, even with a primary complaint of chest pain. Practically a daily call in the winter, and a super annoying chart to write with MEDS while trying to cover yourself as a basic. The only advantage of MEDS was that since it was all radio buttons you could just spam tab>space to fill out almost the entire chart for your average patient.
So sad. I had a Toughbook CF-30 and its keyboard was one of the best I ever used on a laptop. Not mechanical, but it had a bounce to it that made it easy to type for a long time without getting tired.
In the next iteration (CF-31), they changed it to a chicklet style keyboard like those common on laptops nowadays, and there was no magic anymore.
Another think I loved about my CF-30 was how bright the screen could get.
Agree on the trackpad, that thing was small and never worked right.
100% better than the GETACs my ambulance service used, those were hot garbage, with even worse touchscreens (or it may also have been that my service was so cheap they'd buy them on eBay, and even buy partially broken ones and the Director of Ops would Frankenstein multiple broken ones together to get one working)...
I used both, but the thoughbook with Windows and the GETAC with Android. The touchscreen experience was much better in the GETACs I used. The thoughbook is good in the laptop format as linked but not the thoughbooks that are meant to be used as tablets - those die easier.
-Probably, there's a (at least used to be) rubber membrane between key caps and switches to ensure water, coffee, hydraulic fluid, blood, assorted acids, dust, gravel etc. does not make it inside when you douse it in one or more of said substances.
(My last Dell Precision died after having been first on the accident site when a high-pressure manifold burst, courtesy of a sub-par weld - it sat merrily on a tank opposite, logging pressures, temperatures and contamination levels during an operation when suddenly, the manifold opted out of existence, blasted the Dell into the bulkhead, cracked the casing in so many places we didn't even find all the parts afterwards, dousing the remnants in hydraulic fluid (which, as it happens, is quite corrosive and reasonably carcinogenic, too.)
Had a similar thing happen to a ToughBook years later. Simply donned gloves, took it outside, hosed it down in lukewarm water for a while, rebooted and got back to work.
For all their shortcomings, ToughBooks are amazing at their intended use case.
(Oh, and before anyone asks - we set up the test rig, make ourselves scarce, and only then do we start the pumps and apply pressure. I am a firm believer in staying alive.)
Many years ago, at a previous job, I was issued a Toughbook. I loved that I didn't have to even think about babying it. I could just slap it closed when done and throw it (literally) back in the truck.
I didn't like the cost of the thing; which is still costly today. However! Just like back then, today, you can get REALLY good deals on used Toughbooks through eBay. Because they are niche and not many people want to carry an 8Lb brick with them.
>you can get REALLY good deals on used Toughbooks through eBay.
Wow you are right, I took a look and many are in the $200-300 range, though without a drive. I might just grab one to mess around with, and stick in a spare drive I have laying around
I've taken apart a Toughbook to try to resurrect a dead hard drive. It was the most brutally annoying laptops I've ever had to tear apart.
I have SO much respect for those machines, but if it's being sold without a HDD, be prepared for some pain getting it open and then back together again.
The bullet crashed through the LCD screen, giving the keypad a good slap in the teeth before wedging itself in the internal hard disk. Presumably it lay on the desert floor bleeding battery fluid for several minutes as its owner desperately tried, in vain, to save its life.
It is not known whether the laptop would have had a better chance of surviving the assault, had it been installed with the 'ultra-safe' Windows Vista operating system.
Not no one. There is also getac, durabook, rugged series of some dell laptops, there is (was?) itrinix and probably a bit more that I don't really know of :)
As someone who has to purchase rugged laptops for users at my job... Dell has nailed away with the Toughbook market for us. When I first started Panasonic was the only game in town but Dell saw the market size and has done a great job. Now I can just deal with one vendor.
They have 2 levels of "ruggedness" and the one that works for most field work can be purchased for less than $2,000 new through the Dell Business Outlet.
I've encountered a few of these over the years. On the one hand, they are impressively rugged. And easy to repair. But the ones I have laid hands on had terrible displays, terrible keyboards, and terrible touchpads. And this was back when ALL laptop keyboards and touchpads where far inferior to what they are now.
I'm sure some use them because they like the aesthetic, it would not be most people's first choice as a daily driver.
> I'm sure some use them because they like the aesthetic, it would not be most people's first choice as a daily driver.
Almost anyone who uses one does it because they work in an environment where nothing else would survive. Construction sites, mining, dusty or wet places, etc.
There's a niche group of people (particularly electronics distributor FAEs for some reason) who have them for the same reason many people own F150s: because they like to look like they work in that sort of environment.
I used to have one to take to the local bar where I sat doing emergency sysadmin and software fixes; especially later in the evening, people would accidentally knock a pint over it and I didn't care at all. I often had clients call at 4 am when everyone could barely stand but I had to fix a down server. Good times.
> I'm sure some use them because they like the aesthetic, it would not be most people's first choice as a daily driver.
Aesthetic?
Durability and ruggedness are the distinguishing feature for these, and there are many people not working in offices who have that as a requirement for their "daily drivers".
Sure, some people might enjoy the aesthetic for its own sake, but that's not going to play much part of the product strategy.
I'm not gonna lie. Opening a massive Toughbook in a classroom full of puny Macbook Air and other ultrabooks felt GREAT, and worth lugging the 8-pound behemoth in my book bag. Plus, free rucking workout.
Readit News
Turns out it had a cool factor all it's own, and she really liked that laptop. She figured out she could neglect and abuse it. I even left the "property of " stickers from the state police on the thing, which gave it extra... something. It was still working when she gave it back to me before she went to college. I think I sold it for $100.
That was more than 10 years ago. He still has the laptop, the battery is long dead but it runs fine on AC power. Most of the time, it's used as a doorstop.
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The ToughBook lasted years. True, the keyboard left a bit to be desired, the screen ghosted like you wouldn't believe and the colours were a bit, uh, off, not to mention ridiculous resolution - but killing the thing was essentially impossible.
It is the Land Cruiser of laptops. Expensive, sluggish, heavy, indestructible.
It even had a serial port (and, still does as an optional extra!)
Nowadays, I spend much less time in the field and use a T14. Has served me well thus far. Oh, and I can actually carry it around without thinking twice of it.
I see: Optional Serial (True) D-sub 9-pin 6
Where "
6* says: Wow, I had to lookup Fischer LAN. Never heard of that before. It looks like a IP68-rated Ethernet connection! Ref: https://fischerconnectors.com/en/news-blog/high-speed-data-m...Something that's a bit closer to a T14 in portability (albeit this is a X13 competitor - there's a JDM only 14" Let's Note).
Sadly, it's a few generations behind the latest 12" Let's Note model that have welcome improvements such as 3:2 displays (rather than 16:9).
The AMR software, MEDS, was also worse as it forced you to use their limited fields instead of a full written narrative, surely for better analytics. The previous software (zoll?) made it much easier to rely on the narrative to accurately note that the patient who called for chest pain just had bronchitis, even with a primary complaint of chest pain. Practically a daily call in the winter, and a super annoying chart to write with MEDS while trying to cover yourself as a basic. The only advantage of MEDS was that since it was all radio buttons you could just spam tab>space to fill out almost the entire chart for your average patient.
So sad. I had a Toughbook CF-30 and its keyboard was one of the best I ever used on a laptop. Not mechanical, but it had a bounce to it that made it easy to type for a long time without getting tired.
In the next iteration (CF-31), they changed it to a chicklet style keyboard like those common on laptops nowadays, and there was no magic anymore.
Another think I loved about my CF-30 was how bright the screen could get.
Agree on the trackpad, that thing was small and never worked right.
(My last Dell Precision died after having been first on the accident site when a high-pressure manifold burst, courtesy of a sub-par weld - it sat merrily on a tank opposite, logging pressures, temperatures and contamination levels during an operation when suddenly, the manifold opted out of existence, blasted the Dell into the bulkhead, cracked the casing in so many places we didn't even find all the parts afterwards, dousing the remnants in hydraulic fluid (which, as it happens, is quite corrosive and reasonably carcinogenic, too.)
Had a similar thing happen to a ToughBook years later. Simply donned gloves, took it outside, hosed it down in lukewarm water for a while, rebooted and got back to work.
For all their shortcomings, ToughBooks are amazing at their intended use case.
(Oh, and before anyone asks - we set up the test rig, make ourselves scarce, and only then do we start the pumps and apply pressure. I am a firm believer in staying alive.)
I didn't like the cost of the thing; which is still costly today. However! Just like back then, today, you can get REALLY good deals on used Toughbooks through eBay. Because they are niche and not many people want to carry an 8Lb brick with them.
Wow you are right, I took a look and many are in the $200-300 range, though without a drive. I might just grab one to mess around with, and stick in a spare drive I have laying around
I have SO much respect for those machines, but if it's being sold without a HDD, be prepared for some pain getting it open and then back together again.
https://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/mo...
The bullet crashed through the LCD screen, giving the keypad a good slap in the teeth before wedging itself in the internal hard disk. Presumably it lay on the desert floor bleeding battery fluid for several minutes as its owner desperately tried, in vain, to save its life.
It is not known whether the laptop would have had a better chance of surviving the assault, had it been installed with the 'ultra-safe' Windows Vista operating system.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/@Bobjohnson
I don't know if that's a brand or model difference.
Great example of riches are in niches
They have 2 levels of "ruggedness" and the one that works for most field work can be purchased for less than $2,000 new through the Dell Business Outlet.
I'm sure some use them because they like the aesthetic, it would not be most people's first choice as a daily driver.
Almost anyone who uses one does it because they work in an environment where nothing else would survive. Construction sites, mining, dusty or wet places, etc.
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Aesthetic?
Durability and ruggedness are the distinguishing feature for these, and there are many people not working in offices who have that as a requirement for their "daily drivers".
Sure, some people might enjoy the aesthetic for its own sake, but that's not going to play much part of the product strategy.