He told me it was indestructible. I disagree.

[TannerMcCoolman]

Our good ol' buddy Keith from the small tech shop we bought out told us this Panasonic Toughbook laptop was indestructible. We don’t think so. But just how much damage can it take? What ARE the standards for deeming a computer as “rugged”? Was Keith overselling it or does this PC have an adamantium chassis and the ability to regenerate?

[Skiiwee29]

Having used Toughbooks in Iraq and Military from 2005-2010, can atest they are extremely rugged and durable and withstand a TON of abuse. 

[tkitch]

I would not have expected it to survive the car....  but there we go!

 

[Gat Pelsinger]

Okay, lighting the laptop on fire totally got me. It's impressive it made it alive, because I am sure it's engineers didn't account for this as only a small unpopular and obsolete Canadian person who is really short and apparently wears pink socks would ever commit to such sanity.

[GoStormPlays]

It’s interesting that they built the PC to be resistant against fire. I mean what job can you think of where the workers’ computers might catch on fire lol

[SONYSIKE]

If I could get my hands on this thing, it would be a dream come true.

I've had 2 SSD's die on me and I've lost so much information including footage and photos from like around 7 years ago due to overheating problems. At least that's what I think has happened cause new SSD = no problem.

[Thomas4]

Remember, it's Linus, the only person capable of breaking a 20 square meter block of diamond.

[djksm]

17 minutes ago, GoStormPlays said:

It’s interesting that they built the PC to be resistant against fire. I mean what job can you think of where the workers’ computers might catch on fire lol

firefighter

[GoStormPlays]

8 minutes ago, djksm said:

firefighter

Yeah but like why would you bring your computer out to an active fire though-

[djksm]

2 minutes ago, GoStormPlays said:

Yeah but like why would you bring your computer out to an active fire though-

to see the adress/people/calls

[aisle9]

I hate you for destroying one of God's greatest gifts to mankind.

 

I love that you let that little Toughbook go out with honor, class and style, reminding the world of what it and its brethren can do. Seriously, if Russia nukes us, I'm finding the nearest surplus PC shop and hiding under a stack of Toughbooks, because they will survive.

[GoStormPlays]

1 hour ago, djksm said:

to see the adress/people/calls

yeah but they'd probably just leave that in the fire truck..

[Shreyas1]

2 hours ago, GoStormPlays said:

It’s interesting that they built the PC to be resistant against fire. I mean what job can you think of where the workers’ computers might catch on fire lol

I mean it's probably just resistant to extreme heat in general which can include fires. 
 

But imagine you have a super important document on one of these and the building/vehicle you're in catches fire, that would be an issue if they aren't fireproof 

[juchong]

The "super specific wood thickness" is meant to set the pulse width of the drop. The "soft" plywood is meant to decrease the peak acceleration perceived by the DUT by spreading out the shock over a wider time window. You can think of this as the DUT "de-accelerating" a bit slower than if it were to hit concrete directly.

 

It's all about the "area under the curve." A 10,000 gee peak shock pulse may seem like a lot, but it's not much if it only lasts a few microseconds. In contrast, a shock pulse of 1500 gees for 100 milliseconds will likely rip components off a PCB.

 

Here's another example, the table in MIL-STD-883 2002.5 lists several peak gee levels and pulse widths:

 

[GoStormPlays]

1 hour ago, Shreyas1 said:

I mean it's probably just resistant to extreme heat in general which can include fires. 
 

But imagine you have a super important document on one of these and the building/vehicle you're in catches fire, that would be an issue if they aren't fireproof 

That’s true but like- can’t you just use that argument to argue for all laptops having heat resistance 

 

like that’s a very niche use case that less than a niche group of people will actually be using

[dogwitch]

only 1 laptop does not fear linus...

the tough book!

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

4 hours ago, Shreyas1 said:

I mean it's probably just resistant to extreme heat in general which can include fires. 
 

But imagine you have a super important document on one of these and the building/vehicle you're in catches fire, that would be an issue if they aren't fireproof 

In those situations, you'd be lucky if they can even find the laptop. Especially in the case of a structure fire since the rubble is usually bulldozed immediately after fire marshals are done investigating. Often it's unsafe to allow people to dig for items themselves or risk the safety of the fire crews to retrieve stuff. 

[darknessblade]

I Love it.

Have been waiting years for this video.

 

 

[FluxSplatter]

I heard a story recently of someone who had a Toughbook under their arm at a urinal, accidentally dropped it, it bounced off the floor and shattered the urinal from below. 

[indrora]

Linus et al at the end:

 

But in all seriousness, it's not incorrect to say that the MIL STD standard testing is a little... "lacking". It's meant for the 95% use case, which generally isn't going to be "Hucked off a humvee onto the highway at 80mph", it's going to be "dropped out of a second story window" or "knocked off a road case and smushed into the corner of the carrier". As others have noted: The plywood is there to make the impact last longer: It's weirdly easier to survive hitting a hard surface than it is a soft surface because as you're decelerating, you feel all the resistance to slow you down *over a longer period of time*. 

 

There're also other places where these are super useful: 

 

• Airport refueling stations (Jet fuel! Bad weather! Carts that whip around!)
• Dockside environments (corrosive, salt-laden fog!)
• Industrial environments (like a place known as The Worst Place On Earth, a steel mill and radioactive, toxic tailings pond)
• Basically, anywhere you would go "yeah that's probably dangerous for normal tech".

A friend of mine bought a Toughbook competitor (Getac) a while back and would regularly sit in the tub with it watching youtube videos before he sold it. 

 

One important feature of a lot of these is the IP6X rating: Full dust sealing. One that you might not think about is Salt Fog protection, as seen in the Getac X600 Pro specs:

 

In ocean environments, such as on docksides and in areas where you have saltwater fog coming in, electronics will slowly corrode themselves to death if they're not protected against the certification. Also noted here is a milstd 461G -- A series of tests that is more akin to "A more robust version of the FCC part 15 certification", making sure that under heavy RF noise environments there are no mission-stopper failures. Normal laptops do weird things when you drag them into adverse RF environments like on the top of radio towers. 

 

And it's important to consider: Mission-Stopper failure is the key for all the MIL-STD spec stuff: If I can pull the hard drive and RAM out, slap it into a new machine of the same type, kiss any booboos that might have occurred on someone's head/foot/etc from the fall, slap them on the ass and tell them to get back on the field, that's super duper. The critical part of the mission is the data on that disk. The fact I don't have to do that *every* time someone leaves their laptop on the top of the jeep? Only once out of every 10...ish times someone does it? That's savings in the bank right there. 

[AceOfCaydes]

All I really want to know is, what's the highest spec and most durable laptop on the market? Like something that can take a bullet and still chug along.

[juchong]

7 minutes ago, AceOfCaydes said:

All I really want to know is, what's the highest spec and most durable laptop on the market? Like something that can take a bullet and still chug along.

Some Toughbooks saved lives during the Iraq/Afghanistan days (link). I don't think the US Army will ever back up any claims beyond anecdotes, but if LTT would like to visit Seattle with a Toughbook or two, I'm sure we could find a range that would let them do some testing!

[Required]

Hmm I dont want flex but I have to...
I bought with my own Money a brand new Dell Rugged Tablet and I love that beast. Currently we have ~20cm Snow and more and I can going outside and Film, Make Pictures with my Phone and upload them via the Tablet into my Cloud. Nothing say better "snob" than waiting for an Train in an Remote part of the Country and play some good old Games in the Snow and see other people stare at me why my "Laptop" is not death yet. The Weatherforcast say -11 during the night in the next days.