Dell advertises the new Latitude 12 Table as being the first fully rugged tablet made for performance and reliability in the harshest conditions.
Coming in the footsteps of the intimidating Latitude 12 Extreme, a flip-hinge convertible notebook, the Dell Rugged Tablet keeps the same thickness and aggressive looks without the flip-hinge and the keyboard. Dell basically took out the screen and made it into a tablet.
Advertised as being made for extreme conditions, the tablet looks more like a device built for battlefields, being able to resists harsh thermal conditions, any sorts of spills, mud, dust and drops from three-meter heights. The Latitude 12 Rugged comes with an 11.6-inch Direct-View outdoor-readable HD display with gloved-enabled multi-touch capabilities.
To resists harsh thermal conditions, the Rugged Tablet comes pre-packaged with Fourth Generation QuadCool™ thermal management and Fifth Generation Intel® Core™ M processors. Battery life will keep this machine alive for 12 hours with 2-cell batteries.
Tough for your wallet as well
The Latitude 12 also packs 512GB internal storage together with an 802.11ac Wi-Fi as well as an optional mobile broadband and dedicated GPS. The large pogo-pin is for modular interface component expansions when users will need to dock the tablet with desk docks, vehicle docks or keyboards. Users will also be able to buy an optional keyboard with customizable RGB backlight while also being water and dust resistant.
However, if we are to check the competition, Panasonic's Toughbook H1 is another rugged brick-looking tablet that comes with a 1.7GHz Core i5-2557M ULV, 4GB of RAM, a removable 320GBGB 7200RPM shock-mounted hard drive, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 radios. For those who can afford, the DRAM can be upgraded to 8GB, another 128GB SSD added, a 4G radio, a GPS and a fingerprint sensor in case terrorists will want to access your stolen data.
Price-wise, every tablet that remotely resembles ruggedness will easily go over $3,000 so if your sponsor is the US Department of Defense or maybe BP or Shell, in case you're going on Arctic expeditions, you won't be able to easily afford the Latitude 12 Rugged.