Dell's latest Windows tablet is designed for harsh environments

[Scorpus]

Dell has today launched the Latitude 12 Rugged Tablet, the company's first ultra-tough Windows-powered tablet that's designed for "performance and reliability in the harshest conditions."

The Latitude 12 Rugged Tablet meets both the MIL-STD-810G and IP65 specifications, meaning it's designed to survive up to four foot high drops, vibration, shock, temperatures between -20 and 145 degrees Fahrenheit (-29 to 63 degrees Celsius), high altitudes, salt fog, explosive environments, solar radiation, dust exposure, and water jets.

To protect the components of the Latitude 12 against the elements, the device comes with a pretty hefty shell, as you would expect from a rugged tablet. The tablet's 11.6-inch 1366 x 768 display, optimized for outdoor viewing and use with gloves, is surrounded by large bezels, and the body clocks in a 24mm thick and 1.63 kg heavy.

Internally the Latitude 12 Rugged Tablet comes with an Intel Core M CPU, up to 8 GB of RAM, and up to 512 GB of solid state storage. Although Intel designed Core M for fanless designs, the Latitude 12 includes a fan so that a consistent level of performance can be achieved. There's also a two-cell battery that provides up to six hours of life, although you can add a second battery to extend that figure to 12 hours.

Dell has a range of accessories for the Rugged Tablet, including a digital pen, a full-sized keyboard cover, and vehicle and desk docks that connect via a "pogo-pin" interface. On top of this there's a decent collection of standard ports on the tablet itself, including USB 3.0, micro-HDMI, a microSD card slot, and even a micro serial port.

Those who purchase the Latitude 12 Rugged Tablet have a choice of Windows 7, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 depending on their needs.

The Latitude 12 Rugged Tablet will retail for at least $1,600 when it hits the market by the end of July. This may sound like a lot of cash for a Windows tablet, but it's actually cheaper than a lot of its rugged-body competitors.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/61455-dell-latest-windows-tablet-designed-harsh-environments.html

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

Whaddya mean "$1600 may sound like a lot"? If you're buying a house then it's not, but when you're plonking it down on a mere tablet...

 

[mailpup]

Yes, Skid, that's why it says, "This may sound like a lot of cash for a Windows tablet..."

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

Pretty cool, but how the hell do you get IP-65 rating with a fan cooled CPU?

Anyway only negative I see here is the low resolution display, 1366x768 is tiny.

 

[Guest]

"Anyway only negative I see here is the low resolution display, 1366x768 is tiny"

nobody used their 11.6 inch rugged tablet to watch full HD or 4K movies, and bigger resolution on a 11.6 inch rugged tablet will only bring disadvantage: low battery performance and tiny icons which hard to tap when you using gloves

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

nobody used their 11.6 inch rugged tablet to watch full HD or 4K movies, and bigger resolution on a 11.6 inch rugged tablet will only bring disadvantage: low battery performance and tiny icons which hard to tap when you using gloves

Don't care about movies, care about useful desktop space which is useful in Windows. I wouldn't want a crazy high resolution either but 1920x1080 is perfectly acceptable and more useful than 1366x768.

 

[kanehi]

Throw in a 4G LTE connectivity with certain carriers and I might consider getting one. A 1080P will only zap battery life so the resolution is fine.

 

[Guest]

"1920x1080 is perfectly acceptable and more useful than 1366x768"

Don't know whether you read my previous comment or not.. user will find it hard to operate on the field and low battery performance also they'll find it even hard to read the text thanks to that high resolution..on a 11.6 inch

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

"1920x1080 is perfectly acceptable and more useful than 1366x768"

Don't know whether you read my previous comment or not.. user will find it hard to operate on the field and low battery performance also they'll find it even hard to read the text thanks to that high resolution..on a 11.6 inch

I did read it... I just disagree. 768 vertical resolution is too little in my opinion. I understand your point, but if I'd rather sacrifice the size of text than desktop space. I've used plenty of laptops with this 1366x768 resolution and it just isn't enough to get real work done in my opinion. However, that is MY opinion.