Dell drops ruggedised laptop into market

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Dell has unveiled a rugged laptop which meets MIL-STD 810F standards from the US Department of Defence guaranteeing its operation in extreme conditions.

As part of Dell's Latitude range the newly-unveiled in the guise of the Latitude XFR D630 shares disk images and components, which will enhance its corporate appeal as it will simplify deployment and maintenance.

Dell makes a number of claims for the XFR's superior abilities, such as charging its batteries 30 minutes faster compared to its competitors and offering increased data durability thanks to the presence of a solid state drive.

It also sports shock isolated mountings to help protect the hard drive, the LCD and the rest of the internals and Dell claims the keyboard is designed to resist driving rain and dust. The screen brightness of the 14.1in screen is given as 500 nits, which should make it comfortable to use outside.

Performance is provided by an Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 running at 2.2GHz and Dell's quoted performance figures were based on a system with 512MB of RAM, running Windows XP.

"The Latitude XFR D630 represents a tectonic shift towards simplicity in the ruggedised laptop space," said Brett McAnally, director of Dell's product group. "We are taking a multi-dimensional approach that focuses on simplified deployment, service and durability without sacrificing performance."

Dell is also offering next business day on-site support. The Latitude XFR D630 is only available in the US at time of writing and prices start at $3,999 (£1,998).

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