Rugged Field Com­puter Buy­ing Considerations

This arti­cle is intended to help you decide which fea­tures you require in your field com­puter or as some call them a field lap­top. There are a few imme­di­ate con­sid­er­a­tions and uses/​applications to con­sider. The table below offers some of these con­sid­er­a­tions along with sam­ple place­ment, and appli­ca­tions. The pur­pose of this table is to get you think­ing about what to con­sider when defin­ing your needs and act as a primer regard­ing the selec­tion of ruggedi­zed lap­tops or field computers.

Gen­eral Con­sid­er­a­tions Exam­ple Place­ments Pos­si­ble Appli­ca­tions Water­proof Out­door use as an Oil field Mobile work­ers Dust proof Used in a vehi­cle Police Shock Proof Expo­sure to the Ele­ments Pub­lic Safety Tem­per­a­ture resis­tant Office use   Touch Screen Busi­ness Trips   Wire­less, Bluetooth    

How Rugged:

Fully-​​rugged gen­er­ally means the com­puter is built to with­stand shock, vibra­tion, ele­ments, and is fully water­proof. Semi-​​rugged means com­pletely ruggedi­zed but not fully water­proof. Busi­ness rugged on the other hand means slightly ruggedi­zed for fre­quent trav­el­ers. Beyond these, there is no com­mon def­i­n­i­tion among rugged com­puter man­u­fac­tur­ers. You should care­fully con­sider which envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions you need to pro­tect against such as drops, shock, vibra­tion, humid­ity, salt spray, tem­per­a­ture extremes, expo­sure to haz­ardous chem­i­cals or gases, liq­uid spills, etc. Doing so will help you nar­row down what level of rugged you need.

Dis­play (screen) Size:

The size of the dis­play gen­er­ally dic­tates the size of the com­puter. The dis­play size is fixed in a hand held, tablet or and Ultra-​​mobile PC (UMPC). Gen­er­ally the screen size choices for lap­tops are: 3.6”, 5.0”,8.4”,12.1”, 13.3”, 14.1” and 15.0” Keep in mind that big­ger dis­plays are nice but that can mean bulkier com­put­ers that don’t fit well in a vehi­cle or on an air­plane seat-​​back tray table. On bal­ance, read­abil­ity in terms of font size needs to be con­sid­ered if there is a chance you or the user have vision prob­lems. Place of usage and appli­ca­tion influ­ence the dis­play deci­sion as well. For exam­ple graphics-​​intensive soft­ware like CAD/​CAM or GIS map­ping per­form bet­ter with the good dis­play res­o­lu­tion, high-​​end graph­ics card and ample Video RAM you would only find in a high-​​end lap­top. Another con­sid­er­a­tion is being able to eas­ily read the dis­play (screen) in the sun­light. Nor­mal dis­plays that come in tra­di­tional plas­tic com­put­ers are designed for indoor use. Vehicle-​​use and outdoor-​​use com­put­ers require a much brighter dis­play. Choos­ing the best dis­play for your needs will be a func­tion of where the com­puter is intended to be used the major­ity of the time.

Form Fac­tor (Over­all Size & Weight):

If the appli­ca­tion is forms automa­tion or one-​​handed com­put­ing a tablet PC or UMPC would be the cor­rect solu­tion. Form fac­tor choices include: Lap­top, Tablet, Con­vert­ible (Tablet-​​to-​​Laptop), Hand held and Fixed Mount. If you need more def­i­n­i­tion on these choices visit http://​whatis​.techtar​get​.com , This site pro­vides easy to read and under­stand details as well as links to other impor­tant and pop­u­lar top­ics. With regard to weight: If your mobile com­puter will be car­ried around this becomes a very impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tion. Thus, you should look for a a com­puter that is as light as can be. At the same time keep in mind that you don’t want to trade off weight for fea­tures such as a good sized dis­play. The more fea­tures you add or require, the more weight you add to the com­puter. For exam­ple, is a DVD drive or a floppy drive really nec­es­sary? Also a back­lit or rub­ber­ized key­board could add weight. Think in terms of what you need to get the job done, not just what would be nice to have.

The Key­board:

Are you (or the user) going to need to use the lap­top in dark­ened places or at night? If so, you may need to look at com­put­ers with a back light key­board. Basi­cally there are three ways to illu­mi­nate the key­board and they are 1) key­board light or task light, 2) Glow-​​in-​​the-​​dark phos­pho­rus key­boards, and 3) back lit key­boards. There are a num­ber of rea­sons to con­sider this such as: Lighted key­boards reduce squint­ing in low light sit­u­a­tions and they limit the need for extra light­ing or the use of a flash­light. No one of the three meth­ods men­tioned is nec­es­sar­ily bet­ter than the other but mak­ing sure you can see the key­board in the dark is some­thing to think about.

Inte­grated Options:

Many ruggedi­zed mobile com­put­ers offer options not always avail­able in tra­di­tional or com­mer­cial lap­tops. Items to con­sider in this regard include: Wire­less cards (mobile broad­band such s Ver­i­zon, Sprint or AT&T.) also, inte­grated GPS devices and Blue­tooth wire­less, fin­ger­print read­ers or smart­card read­ers and con­nec­tion to a vehi­cle dock­ing sta­tion. Speak­ing of wire­less, it is crit­i­cal that you ensure the rugged or mobile lap­top you choose sup­ports your car­rier! Find out what card or other device your car­rier uses and make sure that is sup­ported or more than just “capa­ble of use” in your lap­top. Specif­i­cally, don’t set­tle for “yes, this will work” because while it’s true “this will work”, there may well be a few adjust­ments, tweaks, or other lit­tle fac­tors that you don’t want to find out about after you’ve spent your money or when it’s to late, such as find­ing out about non-​​compatibility issues once in the field.

Related posts:

1. Com­puter Repair & Lap­top Repair Services
2. Most Com­mon Lap­top Repairs & Their Prices
3. Desk­top and Lap­top Repairs – A Comparison
4. Desk­top & Lap­top Repairs – A Comparison
5. How do I get my com­puter dis­play to show up in color?