The sh*t I come across shopping for work stuff...

[ndporter]

Can someone tell me why there exists a $768 rugged keyboard?

https://www.grainger.com/product/STORM-INTERFACE-14-11-64-x-2-3-64-x-4-43-64-33UA13

 

Also, can we get an LTT review for S&G's. I wanna see Linus drop it. 

 

[imcaspar]

1 minute ago, ndporter said:

Can someone tell me why there exists a $768 rugged keyboard?

It's all about certification, they might even sell another variant marketed at another special market for double the price...

[bellabichon]

Almost all "rugged" hardware is insanely overpriced. Take, for example this $3,499.00 USD Dell Latitude 7424 Rugged Extreme Laptop, with a lightning fast  Core™ i3-7130U (Dual Core). Why? Well, let's just say there's a reason that the United States' military budget is $686.1 billion annually. 

[svmlegacy]

 

> Vandalism is a tough environment to endure.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

7 minutes ago, bellabichon said:

Almost all "rugged" hardware is insanely overpriced. Take, for example this $3,499.00 USD Dell Latitude 7424 Rugged Extreme Laptop, with a lightning fast  Core™ i3-7130U (Dual Core). Why? Well, let's just say there's a reason that the United States' military budget is $686.1 billion annually. 

That being said, your gaming laptop of the same price would not even endure a quarter of what that Rugged Latitude is certified to withstand. In that regard, money well spent. Now your entry level business machines that come with a 768p display, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB HDD, yea those are overpriced. There's virtually no difference between those and the cheap Acer you can purchase at Best Buy. Virtually no additional protection features, or customer support. 

[bellabichon]

1 minute ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

That being said, your gaming laptop of the same price would not even endure a quarter of what that Rugged Latitude is certified to withstand. In that regard, money well spent. 

That's the main difference, yes. What that doesn't explain is why the upgrade to a core i7 is $500. Even assuming that the ruggedized parts are worth ~$2000, it's still a pretty insane markup. 

[Rybo]

33 minutes ago, bellabichon said:

That's the main difference, yes. What that doesn't explain is why the upgrade to a core i7 is $500. Even assuming that the ruggedized parts are worth ~$2000, it's still a pretty insane markup. 

I think that's a function of the tiny market they represent.  They've got a product that they manufacture, and any change to that manufacturing process -- say, vetting, stocking, and installing multiple CPU options -- comes with additional costs beyond the component itself.  Where would you place that added operational cost?  For my part, I'd add it to the chip that caused me to incur it.  

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

On 9/18/2020 at 6:09 PM, bellabichon said:

That's the main difference, yes. What that doesn't explain is why the upgrade to a core i7 is $500. Even assuming that the ruggedized parts are worth ~$2000, it's still a pretty insane markup. 

I'm no expert in how OEMs operate, but I would imagine part of the $500 is spent on the actual price difference between the two chips, but the other part is spent on R&D for that additional SKU. For something that is rugged and is relied upon for mission critical tasks, I would expect there is some additional validation past the machine turns on and the CPU runs at its rated stock and turbo speeds. Does this new configuration cause more EMI potentially? That could be an issue in extreme environments. For consumer machines, someone like Dell or HP might get away from just popping in a new CPU without any serious validation and ship it off to the customer. For something that is expected to be used in places like a war zone, maybe we should test it a bit more. 

[Rocketdog2112]

Anything on Grainger is way overpriced to begin with.

[whm1974]

21 hours ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

I'm no expert in how OEMs operate, but I would imagine part of the $500 is spent on the actual price difference between the two chips, but the other part is spent on R&D for that additional SKU. For something that is rugged and is relied upon for mission critical tasks, I would expect there is some additional validation past the machine turns on and the CPU runs at its rated stock and turbo speeds. Does this new configuration cause more EMI potentially? That could be an issue in extreme environments. For consumer machines, someone like Dell or HP might get away from just popping in a new CPU without any serious validation and ship it off to the customer. For something that is expected to be used in places like a war zone, maybe we should test it a bit more. 

I should add that making hardware Rugged also limits how powerful such hardware can be. An example of this is Computer Equipment designed and intended to to be in Mines has to be completely sealed off to  prevent entry of dust and dirt caused by operation of the mines.