What is Rugged?
Only rugged or ruggedized hardware gives you the confidence that your equipment will work where and when you need it.
Our extensive range of rugged and semi-rugged laptops and rugged tablets from Panasonic, Itronix, Motion Computing, Getac and Twinhead have all been tested in accordance with military standard 810F (MIL STD 810F). For all of our products we state what MIL STD 810F tests the computer hardware have passed and whether it has also have been tested and received a IP (ingress protection) rating for the Water and Dust test methods.
It is very important to note that just because a marketing brochure may state that it passes MIL STD 810F you need to check to see what tests it passes and whether these will give you adequate protection for your own working environment.
What do these tests mean to you? The following table provided by Panasonic gives you real-life examples of what the MIL STD 810F tests mean to you in terms of protecting your computer from damage in the real world.
| Test |
Real-life scenarios |
Risk to Computer |
Drop
|
- Fall from desk
- Airplane overhead container and unpacking during security checks
- Car seat or bonnet of car
|
- Damage to outer casings
- Crashed hard drives
- Cracked LCD
|
Vibration
|
|
- Keyboard failure
- Damage to internal electrical components
|
Moisture
|
- Drinks
- Rain
- Condensation from being stored outside or in non-insulated areas
|
- Damage to keyboard
- Damage to hard drive and other internal components
|
Dust
|
- Harsh outdoor work environments
- Construction sites
- Storage in the car
|
- Damage to CD-ROM and floppy disk drive
- Damage to internal components
|
Temperature
|
- Outdoor storage
- Unheated buildings
- Car mounting
|
- Damage to electrical components
- LCD panel
- Battery operation
|
Why buy Rugged?
As notebooks PCs and rugged tablets become an essential business tool for your mobile workforce the right decision is now even more important. Should you buy rugged or non-rugged devices and what is the real cost of your decision?
At Roaming Technologies we believe that only rugged hardware gives you the confidence that your equipment will work where and when you need it. Consumer grade rugged laptops and rugged tablets are built for the standard office environment where temperatures are constant, humidity and dust are virtually non-existent and shocks from drops and vibration are few and far between. Rugged or ruggedized hardware on the other hand has been built from the ground up (often from US military specifications) to provide a robust and long lasting solution in demanding environments.
For example in a recent case study undertaken by IDC that was sponsored by Panasonic (Ruggedised Mobile Computing: Telstra Case Study), failure rates of non-ruggedised devices were found to be 25% per annum over a four-year period compared with a failure rate of just 1.5% for ruggedised devices. This mirrors our own experience with rugged devices with a failure rate of less than 1% of our total sales volume.
Importantly when making the final purchase decision you need must go beyond the initial difference in the upfront cost of the device and take into account the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). The TCO takes into account the real but often intangible hidden costs such as:
- Employee downtime,
- Cost of buying or replacing devices,
- Loss of important company data
- Costs for technical support to rebuild machines or diagnose faults
- Loss of customers confidence
In summary when choosing the right equipment for your mobile workforce you need to ensure that the device provided, will not only stand up to the demanding and often changing outdoor environment but also be tough enough to withstand the most demanding user and harsh treatment.