Dell's Rugged Laptop Doesn't Quite Pass 4-Foot Drop Test 113
narramissic writes "Dell's new Latitude E6400 XFR laptop is designed to withstand drops, dust and high pressure water spray. The company claims the laptop, which is intended for military use, can withstand rain and wind gusts of up 70 mph, and can work in temperatures from -20 to 145 degrees Fahrenheit. It can also work for an hour at an altitude of 15,000 feet and is designed to withstand drops of around 4 feet (48 inches) when not operating and 36 inches when operational. The LCD screen floats a little bit within the LCD cover so it can take impacts and shock, said Jeremy Bolen, a Dell spokesman. But watch as the laptop that Dell used to show these features wasn't able to withstand the rough treatment that was part of the company's demonstration."
4-Foot Drop = Rugged? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:4-Foot Drop = Rugged? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
If e-paper ever improves enough, this would be an excellent place for it.
Re:4-Foot Drop = Rugged? (Score:4, Insightful)
If e-paper ever improves enough, this would be an excellent place for it.
E-paper doesn't withstand drops well, either. I dropped my Kindle from a height of about 2 feet, it landed facing up, and the display was permanently broken. There was a diagonal "crack" in the matrix under the surface, and vertical and horizontal streaks leading up to it. It wasn't pretty.
Interestingly, it *did* hold the display until it tried to refresh. I didn't realize it was broken until I turned the page.
Re: (Score:2)
wow, that's really weird!
When I think of e-paper, I think of the roll-y bendy kind. I never thought of it as being rigid. I always thought it was the electronics which housed the paper would break first.
Are you able to get a replacement for your kindle?
Re:4-Foot Drop = Rugged? (Score:4, Informative)
Are you able to get a replacement for your kindle?
Already have it. I submitted an inquiry on amazon.com, and they responded promptly telling me to use their tool on the website to speak with them via phone, which sounded kinda strange, but ok... so there's a page (after you log in and go to the manageyourkindle page) where you type in your phone number, and they call you RIGHT THAT SECOND. You still wait on hold for, gosh, maybe 30 seconds, but freaky anyway. ;-) Then a rep with a Starbucks-caliber chipper friendliness in his attitude asked what I'd done to try to address the problem, and after I told him I'd done what you're supposed to do (I'd power-cycled and used the Reset button under the back cover), told me I'd have my replacement Monday, which I did. That was Friday night at 9:30 p.m.
They never even asked how it got broken. I'd been agonizing over whether to say "Gosh, I just pulled it out of my purse and it was like that" or tell them the truth... but it didn't even matter.
Best. CS. Ever.
Re: (Score:2)
That's amazing! I would never have imagined something like that from "phones? we don't have phones here"-amazon.
Really glad you were able to get that taken care of. You should definitely tell that story more, and write a review on the Kindle maybe. That's the rare CS story that you like to hear about.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The extreme fragility of ePaper displays is still somehow eInk's dirty little secret. They are WAY more fragile than typical laptop LCD screens. The Kindle forums are full of stories from people who have broken the screen while doing various benign things, like resting another book on top of it (while the Kindle was still inside its protective cover no less.) I personally cracked my Kindle screen simply by pressing on it lightly.
Re: (Score:1)
Man, I've dropped my MBP many times and it's still good. Not necessarily from 4 feet, maybe 2-3 but still.
I think Dell is trying to get into a market that requires quality manufacturing which is something that they don't have.
Look at the Panasonic Toughbooks for an example of good quality. Those are usually what people picture when you think rugged laptop.
The only way Dell will succeed in this market is if they undercut the competition. But even then, usually in this market, reliability is the main concern
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Man, I've dropped my MBP many times...
Dude, get a grip.
Re: (Score:2)
I once had my old iBook drop from a table of that height when the small backpack it was in fell off the table. It survived and lived for another 6 months until I replaced it with a shiny new MacBookPro. It certainly wasn't 'ruggedised' and the cheap backpack that I had it in had no padding with the exception of the back area and the bag landed on its side. I was quite worried about it, and I did replace the hard drive in the laptop however I did get everything off and it did survive.
Re: (Score:2)
Which is kinda irrelevant. This isn't a random notebook they decided to test. It's the "rugged" model billed as being tough. If "most" LCD's aren't designed to take this kind of stuff then you don't buy "most" LCD's and instead design around one that CAN take that kind of drop.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Correct, at least the common ones that most people and industry can get. I think there are few that can withstand more abuse than a 4 foot drop. Nevertheless most "thin" screen displays the military uses are plasma.
You'd have to expect that from the laws of physics (Score:2)
On impact, force equals mass by deceleration too... ;-)
Re: (Score:2)
Did you watch the video? I just watched the entire video, and the laptop never died.
Where's the video of the dell failing the drop test?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
According to the audio w/ the video the reporter states that Dell would not let them show the damage. They also said that particular demo had been dropped over 100 times from the 4ft height which does seem pretty robust.
I do like how the Dell seals up to prevent water/dust damage. It seems more robust than the Panasonic plastic tabs. Our students always manage to break those off when storm or weather balloon chasing.
Like my "dent-proof" carafe (Score:5, Interesting)
Many years ago, I had a sales rep who sold me Nissan thermos bottles. During one of his visits, he showed me (not to try to sell it to me, but because he thought I'd think it was cool) a new titanium dent-proof bottle that was really light and marketed at cyclists. When it came to demonstrating that it was dent-proof, he took his sample in hand and whacked it three times on one of my tables. "Now watch, those dents will just pop right out." Well, by the time he left, those dents were still there. In fact, he recently sent that bottle to me. The dents are still there.
Another sales rep was showing off glasses that didn't break when dropped. She demonstrated this by flinging the glass across the shop. While the glass didn't break, she did say, "One of these days I'm not going to get away with that."
The lesson: shit happens in product demos.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Reminds me of the idiots who try to impress people with their IT redundancy by pulling a disk out of an array while a VIP is in the room.
Some day, a rebuild will fail, and you're going to have to work all night to fix your data. Stupid.
Or worse... (Score:1)
Someday, the VIP's secretary's server access will immediately slow to a crawl since it was a RAID-5 the idiot pulled the drive out of.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yea...just stupid in general.
of course, if you had the hot spare marked somehow, I don't believe pulling that out would cause a rebuild.
Wear and tear on the chassis and sled, yes, and still counts as stupid, since this is IT, and one in a million things happen every day.
Re: (Score:2)
Better yet, just keep an extra, broken drive physically mounted in the machine. Don't actually hook it up to anything... use that to show off. :D
Re: (Score:2)
shit happens in product demos.
Dear aunt, let's so double the killer delete select all?
Re:Like my "dent-proof" carafe (Score:4, Interesting)
Hahaha... or the story of Bill Gates demonstrating Windows98's plug and pray.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgriTO8UHvs [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
I've dropped my first-gen iPhone running across the street three times, on a tile floor twice. No protective case (hence the reason it slid out of my pocket -- the first-gen is like holding teflon) and all I have to show for it is a couple 2mm scratches on the silver edge. Glass and back are 100% scratch free.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Reminds me of a 3M rep that was demoing some new "rugged" fiber patch cables. She put a light on it, tied it into a knot, showed light still coming through (as if that demonstrated that it would carry data still, but I digress). One of our cable installers took it, crimped it, and the lights went out forever (surprise surprise). We all knew what would happen, but MAN wasn't she pissed about it. We weren't going to buy their product anyway, regardless of the demo, but she spent the next half hour uncomfo
Re:Like my "dent-proof" carafe (Score:4, Interesting)
Years ago, I worked at a garden supply and patio furniture shop. A couple of guys I worked with were carrying a glass tabletop out of a truck. When they nearly dropped it, they turned white as a sheet, than heaved a sigh of relief when they realized they'd caught it in time.
The lady who ran the patio furniture section was there, and she laughed as they set the table top atop its frame. "Don't worry," she said. "It's shatterproof. I could jump up and down on this and it wouldn't break."
A buddy of mine was there, and immediately said, "Do it." So without missing a beat, she climbed up on top of the table and jumped up and down on it, really slamming her feet down forcefully with every descent. No damage.
She then climbed down, and as she was walking away, she grinned and said, "You didn't think I'd do it, did you?"
"Nope." But he was suitably impressed.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Too bad their later products (such as Zip disks) didn't take anything more than regular use to fail regularly.
Re: (Score:2)
According to Snopes (and my memory - I live in Toronto where this happened) this is indeed true:
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/window.asp [snopes.com]
Dude, you're gettin' a Dell (Score:2, Troll)
Dell is noteworthy for their crappy materials. Even most standard notebooks (especially older PowerBook and Thinkpads) can withstands 3-6 feet drops without a problem. I had a Dell once that couldn't withstand a 1 feet drop from a couch.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
*shrugs*
I accidently dropped my wifes Dell laptop from at least 4 feet. It survived and still runs just fine.
Re:Dude, you're gettin' a Dell (Score:4, Funny)
I accidently dropped my wifes Dell laptop from at least 4 feet. It survived
What's more important is that you obviously survived to post this tale. Sir, please mail me when you divorce because for the love of all that's sacred, I will propose this fine woman.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Whether it fell off a couch or a cement wall, isn't it more important what it is falling onto instead of what it is falling off of?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Maybe it's the OS that is wonky? (Score:4, Interesting)
What are you running on them?
I had a small-shop custom-built job years ago with Win2K on it, and Windows would go belly-up hard-reboot with depressing and increasing frequency, necessitating a complete wipe every couple months, after which the reboot-X-days-later cycle would restart with X as a larger, though shrinking, number. Later I installed Red Hat on it with Windows in a VM (required for certain software, >sigh...<) and it worked like a charm. Turned out the mobo's SMART controller was borked in some subtle way that killed Windows, but Linux was smart enough to find the mobo error and work around it (confirmed in dmesg).
I'm not saying your shitload of Dell OptiPlex 700 series desktops all have borked mobos, but maybe some BIOS setting or Windows driver isn't playing nicely?
(Disclaimer: I own a Dell and have had generally good luck with it, but I'm no apologist. My own machine is a Dimension 5150, and I was bothered to learn that, despite a 64-bit CPU, the chipset is limited to 32-bit memory addressing. How stupid!)
Cheers,
Re: (Score:1)
Why were you against buying tells prior to the incident?
Also, it sounds like the example you provided is an issue with the motherboard and the usb drive. These issues are not really Dells fault.
Re: (Score:2)
I was against it because I've had nothing but trouble out of every Dell computer I've used for the last several years. I have a Latitude D800 laptop whose DVD drive and spare hard drive both came DOA (and the second DVD drive they sent to replace it lasted about a month). And I've seen several other laptops and desktops here at work with similar bullshit issues that suggest cheap parts and poor quality control. It finally turned me off to Dell completely. These weren't a few isolated incidents, I've had ser
Re: (Score:2)
Your problem is that you bought a d800. I have a d820, it's awesome. You can tell by the ending of the model number, how recently that style was introduced. The original c series sucked, the original d series sucked. Wait until the 20
Re: (Score:2)
it sounds like the example you provided is an issue with the motherboard and the usb drive. These issues are not really Dells fault.
Although Dell doesn't manufacture their own motherboards they can at least test their hardware to see if certain combinations work. I know there are some really unstable motherboards out there, I you build it yourself you just spend $25 more on a better one and all your problems mysteriously vanish. However Dell lately seems to ship the cheapest hardware available no matter wh
Re: (Score:2)
I'd imagine that they design their own motherboards in laptops, even if they don't do the actual manufacturing themselves. The same is probably true for desktops. If nothing else, they don't use off-the-shelf models, and are responsible for their selection.
Napoleon Dynamite (Score:3, Funny)
Reminds me of Napoleon Dynamite, when Kip is selling tupperwear and he drives over one with a van to show its strength, and it just completely bursts. He just says "dang" and drives away.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
when Kip is selling tupperwear
Sweet jesus, tell me they haven't gotten into the fashion business now!
I always love failed demos of "drop proof" laptops (Score:5, Insightful)
Did anyone catch "Attack of the Show" last night? They showed another one of these increasingly trendy "drop proof" laptops. Every time they dropped it (even from just two or three feet), the battery and dvd drive went flying off (requiring a reboot and, of course, costing you any unsaved data).
The problem with many of these things is that they build bullet-proof titanium super-duper-armour plating for the shell, but use the same old components for the hard drives, battery connections, drive bay connections, etc. The skin of the thing is the LEAST problematic part. I'm more interesting in how you built the hard drive than the SKIN. An adamantium skin won't help your laptop survive if it's using some standard off-the-shelf hard drive and battery.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:I always love failed demos of "drop proof" lapt (Score:4, Funny)
Fair enough. OTOH, if you have access to adamantium, you probably also could just use a brick with a +3 data storage bonus, rather than a hard drive.
Re: (Score:2)
It's all kind of B.S. anyway... if you do even simple back-of-the-envelope calculations on the forces involved with a corner impact from 4 feet, it's clear that you'd need several inches of padding, which would make your "laptop" look like one of those old suitcase Compaqs.
Rugged laptop falls onto carpet... (Score:1, Insightful)
Really, I am sure if I pushed my laptop off the table - fairly carefully - it would probably survive the fall, if that fall was softened by a carpet... and I could buy several laptops for the price Dell are asking for their super tough, macho, carpet loving laptop.
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah my 2 year old LG laptop has fallen off my bed and the back of my couch (4ft) onto carpet and survives. It was $1000 at the time of purchase.
I'm sure it wouldn't have survive if it was on solid ground, but still. 4ft is not that far. I expect more out of a 'rugged' laptop.
Back in '93 (Score:2)
I was working on the firmware for a MIL-spec tablet. We had a requirement for a 5-foot drop non-operating and 3-foot drop operating.
The weight of the shock absorbers on that thing was insane -- added at least 2-3 pounds.
That's a Dell? (Score:2)
Looks more like a rebadged Panasonic Toughbook than a Dell.
Mine didn't survive a 1/2 inch drop! (Score:2, Insightful)
I have the previous generation ATG (D630). It's Dell's entry level "ruggedish" laptop. The monitor is fantastic and the general quality is good (which is the main reason I bought it) However it does have some design issues. The most important one being that the HDD is screwed directly to the external metal chassis. This means ANY sharp jolt to the laptop can destroy your drive. That's exactly what happened to me. I'd just closed the lid when I dropped it at most a half inch back onto the counter. That was e
Enquiring minds want to know (Score:2)
Ah, the memories (Score:2)
um yah (Score:1)
I watched, and the laptop survived just find. Stayed on and worked after all test. Am I a blind idiot and missing something, or is narramissic just retarded?
Non Rugged can be rugged (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Funny that, I've dropped all sorts of shit with no ill to it, yet a friend of mine destroyed every single thing he dropped at much lower heights and much more yielding surfaces.
I've dropped two different laptops several times, dozens of cell phones, sealed cans of soda, glasses, plates...
He broke a hard drive from a foot onto carpet, a mouse, a can of soda exploded on him after dropping in on linoleum, several dishes... he dropped a G4 PowerBook, the display and hard drive were fine but the keyboard stopped
Re: (Score:2)
Many years ago I was transfered to a country posting, where we stayed in the single mens quarters. They had at one stage had some unbreakeable crockery.
A previous resident visited with a friend and decided to demonstrate by dropping a whole stack of plates.
Unfortuanately, they were different plates that did break. Hllarity ensued.
Why so difficult? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Yes, but your device doesn't seem to survive the drop test, either.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A laptop computer is made with lots of plastic and glass, has moving parts, and has to be designed to so that parts can be replaced.
The computer in that shell is a special purpose computer that does one thing very well; has either a capacitor or a small, fixed battery; has few, if any, external parts, is not designed to be repaired; but rather the whole unit is tossed out; has no moving parts, no glass; and is probably inside a metal housing, possibly embedded in a solid block of high-impact plastic.
In othe
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
A modern laptop doesn't necessarily need any moving parts. Other than fans (which aren't required in lower-power models), the hard drive is the only moving part left. Many notebooks ship with SSDs today, eliminating that.
LCDs don't necessarily require glass substrate, as it seems there's been some research into using plastic substrates.
Wow, 70 whole mph?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
This laptop can survive wind gusts of 70mph? I should hope so. I should also hope it would survive wind gusts of 88mph, or 100mph. I'm reasonably certain that every computer I've ever owned, from my lowly C64 all the way up to my current quad-core beast, could survive wind gusts of 70mph.
BTW, how fast does the air out of those duster cans spray? Just curious...
Re: (Score:2)
This laptop can survive wind gusts of 70mph? I should hope so. I should also hope it would survive wind gusts of 88mph, or 100mph. I'm reasonably certain that every computer I've ever owned, from my lowly C64 all the way up to my current quad-core beast, could survive wind gusts of 70mph.
With a powerful enough gust of wind striking, say, the open face of a laptop's LCD display, you could expect that force to have some kind of an effect on the hinge or possibly the LCD itself.
Re: (Score:2)
I would be impressed if it could take a 70mph *sand* storm, which would be more relevant to the US military, no?
I don't see the crack (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Listen to the audio. The narrator states that Dell did not allow them to film the damage.
Why 15,000 ft? (Score:1)
My run of the mill thinkpad has operated at the summit of Mauna Kea (~14,000 ft) many times. I've personally also used a Gateway laptop, and a couple of seagate 2.5" harddrives up there. I know of many people who have used other laptop models there as well, and have never heard of any problems. The pressure difference between 14000 ft and 150000 ft is only about 15%.
I strongly suspect Dell just pulled the 15,000 ft number out of their rear because some marketing person thought it sounded neato.
4 grand? (Score:2)
So you'll have to drop a laptop from table height roughly once a year to make this economical compared to a run-of-the-mill machine?
Re: (Score:2)
Did anyone read the article? (Score:2)
Video won't load for me, but the article seems to.
During a laptop demonstration provided by Dell, the laptop weathered jetted water and 3-foot drops while running, but the non-operational 4-foot drop proved to be a problem. After a third drop from 4 feet, the LCD screen's protective plastic cover shattered.
Dell responded to the crack by saying that the demo laptop was a pre-production model that had already been dropped a hundred times. There's a three-year warranty on the machine and a cracked screen will be replaced immediately, Bolen said.
Despite the screen crack, the laptop is protected by a chassis made of ballistic armor, which is a high-strength substance used in ballistic missiles, cryogenics and other military applications. It is a high-end polymer that is two to three times more durable than the magnesium alloy material used on most laptops today, Bolen said.
Where's the problem?
Re: (Score:2)
Where's the problem?
Let me point out the lines and what they mean. Clearly you are new to corporation-speak.
Dell responded to the crack by saying that the demo laptop was a pre-production model that had already been dropped a hundred times.
The cockup that we said wouldn't happen did actually happen, so here is an excuse that sounds plausible that you cannot verify and have to take our word for.
There's a three-year warranty on the machine and a cracked screen will be replaced immediately, Bolen said.
Well, it doesn't really do what we told you it would, but at least we can replace your broken screen. At our place. While you don't have anything to use. Sorry.
Now is the outlines of a problem starting to crop up a little more?
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, if they're outright lying, it's bad.
I guess nobody here trusts anything Dell says, either. :P
Re: (Score:1)
Really? (Score:1)
OLPC (Score:2)
Huh. I dropped my OLPC from about 4 feet (a little less, maybe 3.5 with some forward momentum too) just a week ago. It bounced to about 1.5-2 feet, then landed again. Outdoors, hard asphalt. No damage except a tiny depression in the plastic on one corner.
Not the first time I've dropped it, either. Only thing I've broken from a drop is a tiny chunk of plastic off the headphone jack--in a ~6 foot drop onto a tile floor that hit the wall and my leg and thus didn't get the full force, but did manage to bend the
Re: (Score:2)
The most resilient consumer product I've owned has been Nokia mobile phones. I've had several different models, and invariably end up dropping them at various times (or even sending it flying across the room after fumbling to catch it). I've not had anything worse than scrapes so far from drops. Most common drop at one stage was failing miserably to slot it into a inside jacket pocket - cue drop from over 4 feet!
I recently broke my latest one though, a 6233, by having it in my hip pocket while accidentally
Re: (Score:2)
I ran my old Sony Ericson T616 through the wash, not once but twice.
Worked fine after. Probably still does years later.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I like the ballistic armor (spectra flex/kevlar)...makes me want to shoot a Dell with a 9mm STEN.
Trust me, shooting a Dell without the armor is orders of magnitude more satisfying.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Dell responded to the crack by saying that the demo laptop was a pre-production model that had already been dropped a hundred times.
If that's the case I'm a little impressed. LCD screens are depressingly fragile.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
I remember a few times I left my ThinkPad in the car overnight when I still lived in SE Michigan. At about 0 degrees the screen tend to blur when moving the pointer around but it worked fine and cleared up in a few minutes. My only concern with the whole thing was bringing it into a warm environment tended to cause it to sweat. I often thought that would cause long term problems with the stuff inside but it never did.
Granted -20 is a whole lot colder than 0. I've been in both.
Re: (Score:2)
If it's -20 f, you don't have rain. you have hard snow.
-20f is right around -29C. yeah, that's fscking cold. Deep storage freezer cold. And if they'll do field swaps in that environment, I'll order two.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Background radiation levels are also somewhat higher at high altitudes, which could corrupt data in RAM or cache and cause instabilit
Re: (Score:2)
That's what ECC RAM and shielding is for. They'd be morons not to be using ECC RAM in a rugged laptop. Radiation-induced bit-flipping is not something that can be solved by an off-the-shelf SSD, although you can probably solve this in software. For example, ZFS will detect the errors, and RAID-Z would correct them. Thing is, since ZFS doesn't work on the normal partition metaphor, I'm not sure if you could get a RAID-Z setup working on a single disk. You wouldn't normally want to do that, of course, but use
Just missing the obligatory Pulp Fiction quote ... (Score:2)