Dell Latitude XT2 XFR ruggedised laptop

Dell’s XT2 tablet PC has been around for just over a year, and now the company has come up with a fully-ruggedised version in the form of the XT2 XFR. Able to withstand drops, freezing temperatures and rain, it’s primarily aimed at those who have to cope with something a little more testing than a daily commute on the train. …

[Anonymous Coward]

XP

We're looking at these systems for site engineers (oil&gas industry) but from the site it seems they only can run Vista/W7.

A lot of the engineers need a boatload of old tools that might not work on vista/windows 7.

Any chance that you tried this thing with XP ? It looks as if it might work, but..

(it may just be me, but I don't think people in the market for this sort of hardware are looking for the latest and shiniest operating revision. As you said, it is a niche market.).

[Anonymous Coward]

title

I have had a regular XT2 running XP - no problems at all really.

[Teoh Han Hui]

Virtualization

Run those tools in a virtual machine, perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the small things...

"It welcomes finger prods, but if you whip the stylus out it’ll ignore them"

So if you manage to misplace the stylus, you're foooked?

Other AC - I've found that a fair few of Dell's recent lappies just do not have the drivers available for XP. Have a look on their support site - if there's XP drivers for download, it'll be fine, otherwise you'll almost certainly be out of luck.

[Idlehanz]

Rebadged Getac

Given that Dell don't manufacture any laptops, not that most major brands to, asside from Acer. This particular offering looks like it has probably come from the house of Getac, part of Mitac Corporation.

In which case it should be a good product.

[James Foster]

XP Pro

I cannot understand why Dell would not use Windows 7 Pro. As a previous poster send WIndows XP is very important to the corporate market and will remain so for another few years. 7 Pro and Ultimate includes Virtual PC meaning any XP program will work without any problem, alhough not XP drivers, ultities and AV software.

I have to say though that in this market the Panasonic Toughbooks are the benchmark for fully rugged laptops. And for semi-rugged laptops I would very strongly recommend the new HP Elitebooks.

[DRendar]

32Bit

"Other features include 802.11n wireless, Gigabit Lan, an ambient light sensor, fingerprint reader and Windows 7 Professional 32-bit."

Why for the love of all that is holy is anyone shipping NEW machines with 32 Bit versions of Win7?

I mean for that matter why did M$ even MAKE a 32Bit version available? It's not like there are any machines running with 32Bit only CPUs still out there that could run Windows7 comfortably FFS

Or maybe they WANT people running P4 1.6Ghz installing their OS, so that they get pissed off with it being so slow, and go out to buy a new computer, which nets M$ another License?

It is baffling.

[Anonymous Coward]

VAIO VGN

I've dropped my vaio about three feet onto concrete, spilled wine on the keyboard and additionally in the dvd drive (don't ask), i've used it in the rain and it's still happily ticking along after four years of abuse additionally it only weights 1.2 kilograms and didn't come with the pricetag that the tablet does.

[Matt 13]

3hours??!!

The battery is woeful! my toughbook can manage 7hours with display on full brightness, wifi on and several internet pages running...

The XFR's are nice looking but after a few toughbooks, I wouldnt choose anything else! - Ive thrown an old CF-27 over head height, in the garden and it apart from dislodging a pcmcia card carried on working :D