What do we mean by rugged when it comes to electrical goods such as computers, tablets or laptops? In essence, rugged means robust, hardy and will withstand heavy usage, weather conditions and therefore great for those working outdoors.



You will generally need a rugged tablet PC in the following conditions:

*Exposure to extremes of heat or cold

*Exposure to liquids (anything from light rain or humidity right up the scale)

*Exposure to any kind of dust or other particles

*Proximity to any hazardous materials

*Any kind of shock, for example by dropping, bumping against other equipment or shaking

A rugged Tablet PC will come with a touch screen meaning you simply touch the screen with either your finger or a stylus pen to retrieve information and switch from page to page. Keyboards are connected via IR or Bluetooth. An on screen keyboard is also a feature within Windows. Rugged tablets can be carried with one hand, so that you have a hand free for more mobility and allowing you to use stylus to active the screen.

Depending on what brand of rugged tablet you have purchased, there is a hard drive heater available on some models that will help in cold conditions allowing you to the depth of -20C. This is an added expense, but if you work in colder environments with your rugged tablet a heater would be a great addition.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is heat from the intense sun proving issues for conventional electrical goods. The added sunlight readable LCD would be a great addition to your rugged tablet allowing you to see the entire LCD with the sun shining directly in the screen.

Another good investment for your rugged tablet would be a GPS - Global Positioning System which will help you find your way in the fields if you should happen to become lost. The GPS will show you right where you are and where you need to be. Some of them have 'turn-by-turn' directions and will get you back to your work area or to safety. Depending on the type of software purchase with the internal GPS will determine the functionality of the GPS. Most external GPS devices feature more options and more user friendly.

Rugged tablets are great for warehouse use as well as outdoor usage because they are good around dirt and heavy equipment. You can even mount them to the equipment so they are always handy when you need to find stock or other information. Mounted rugged tablets will allow you to look through pages of documents in an instant rather than several minutes or hours with regular paper files. Inventory will take less time and productivity will increase due to the accessibility of a ruggedized tablet.

Visually, rugged tablet PCs are most likely to stand out from the crowd because of their outer casing, which is larger and more solid than usual and is capable of withstanding harder knocks. They are built to withstand heat, cold, dust and a whole raft of other ?nasties?. Needless to say there's a barrage of standards which manufacturers test against and then quote to testify to the properties of their machines. There are only a handful of websites out there catering for rugged peripherals including Spirit Data Capture and Terralogic.

Most rugged tablets PCs are made of magnesium alloy allowing the bumps and drops of every day use. Internal components are protected and the LCD is reinforced. Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 2GB-4GB of RAM are optional and very nice features to have. Itronix is the maker of the Duo Touch II, a newly released rugged tablet made to survive nearly everything a human would encounter which are widely used by the military. Therefore, public safety assures these machines are very dependable.