June 2018

Durabook Americas, Inc., the North American subsidiary of Twinhead International Corporation, announced today the release of a new case study outlining the unique and flexible relationship AE Tools and Durabook Americas have established, resulting in the marriage of AE Tools' OEM-level diagnostics solution and Durabook's SA14 semi-rugged laptop. The combination of these two organizations, both known in their markets for quality, innovation, and commitment to their customers, means automotive aftermarket service centers have a world-class diagnostic solution they can rely on for years to come. The new case study can be downloaded at: http://bit.ly/Durabook-AETools [See Durabook Americas press release]

Full review: ARBOR Technology SCP Cube
Uninterruptible power supplies are crucial in today's world. And especially so with sensitive electronic systems. One problem is that the batteries in UPS systems are heavy, pose fire risks, have limited life cycles, and relatively narrow operating temperature ranges. An interesting option are supercapacitor-based systems such as ARBOR Technology's SCP Cube, a 2-in-1 supercapacitor power and environmental monitoring solution offers compelling alternative to battery-based systems in terms of safety, maintenance, longevity. [See full review of the ARBOR Technology SCP Cube] -- Posted Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Honeywell's Dolphin CN80: Move to Android. Keep the keys.
Honeywell points out that with the various mobile Windows versions' end-of-life officially announced, it’s time to start thinking about transitioning to Android. To that extent, Honeywell offers the new Dolphin CN80, a thoroughly modern and ultra-rugged Android device with integrated industrial-grade scanning that's ready to tackle the transition to Android. With the help of integrated hardware keypads for those legacy apps still in use. Makes perfect sense. [See description, analysis and specs of the Honeywell Dolphin CN80] -- Posted Monday, June 25, 2018

Affordable, quick NVMe-based storage
Solid state disks (SSDs) have pretty much replaced hard disks in mobile technology, and especially in tablets. In rugged systems, the advantages of SSDs is huge. Much smaller, much tougher, much faster, and increasingly not much more expensive. So we see plenty of SATA SSDs in the products we test. What we don't see a lot of is NVMe-based SSDs that use a PCIe interface, usually in M.2 card form. Compared to SATA SSDs, PCIe-based SSDs are much faster, with 5-6 times the peak throughput. We'd love to see more rugged device manufacturers take advantage of that. Our friends at HotHardWare.com just did another informative review of NVMe-based storage that points out the advantages. [See Affordable, quick NVMe-based storage] -- Posted Wednesday, June 20, 2018

Full review: Xplore XSLATE L10 Rugged Tablet Platform
With the new XSLATE L10 platform Xplore Technologies evolved their latest rugged tablet into a comprehensive tablet ecosystem covering a wide range of performance and functionality demands. Available as a pure tablet (XSLATE L10), a version with hard handle and an optional integrated barcode reader (XPAD L10), and a 2-in-1 laptop replacement (XBOOK L10), the versatile platform is available with powerful quad-core 8th generation Intel Core processors as well as an entry-level Pentium processor. [See full review of the Xplore XSLATE L10] -- Posted Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Getac launches 7th generation of its rugged B300 laptop
Anyone in the market for a traditional, full-size rugged laptop computer rejoice: Getac has just upgraded its long-running, field-proven B300 to state-of-the-art processing and ancillary technology. Available with four different Intel 8th generation ("Coffee Lake") quad-core Core i5 and i7 processors, Getac offers very significant performance and efficiency upgrades to its workhorse rugged laptop that remains compatible with peripherals and mounts of every other B300 ever produced. [See description, analysis and specs of the Getac B300 Gen 7]. -- Posted Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Universal Stylus Initiative elects Board of Directors and adds Members to support adoption of Open Active Stylus Standard
The Universal Stylus Initiative (USI) elected eight member companies to its 2018 Board of Directors including representatives from Google, Hanvon, Intel, Lenovo, Solomon-Systech, Synaptics, Wacom and Waltop. "USI has a strong Board of Directors, an active and growing membership and the first and only open, non-proprietary active stylus specification," said Peter Mueller, chairman, USI. "Indications are that there will be released products based on the USI 1.0 Specification available this year. The industry adoption of USI will provide consumers with more stylus options, new capabilities and great performance across multiple classes of devices." [See USI press release] -- Posted Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Make IP67 the minimum standard for rugged handhelds
Few outside of the rugged computing and perhaps a few other sectors know what an "IP" rating means, or the specific significance of "IP67." Those inside those markets, however, cherish the designation for what it is — a degree of protection that brings peace of mind. If an electronic device is "IP67-sealed," that means neither dust nor water will get in. IP67 should be the minimum standard for any industrial handheld that may be used outdoors or near liquids. [Read RuggedPCReview.com EIC Conrad Blickenstorfer's "Make IP67 the minimum standard for rugged handhelds"] -- Posted Tuesday, June 5, 2018

The Google Chrome vs Android situation
SlashGear ran an article provocatively entitled "Tablets are dead, long live Chrome tablets!" in which the author argued that with Google's somewhat inexplicable lack of interest in Android on tablets, it'll only be a matter of time until Android is done on tablets and that "Chrome OS and Chromebooks are being groomed to do what Android tablets have not been able to in terms of productivity and usability." That may or may not be so, but it's indeed puzzling how Google essentially ignores Android on tablets. To this day, every Android rev acts as if it's on a phone and all device info is "About phone." So will Android tablets indeed become Chrome tablets? [See Tablets are dead, long live Chrome tablets!] -- Posted Tuesday, June 5, 2018