Product Reviews

Stray onto a battlefield, or into the midst of a firefight, and sneaking a quick peek at Facebook probably isn't the first thing on most people's minds - but Getac's latest fully ruggedised laptop, the B300, is strong enough to survive the harshest of environments and, hopefully, deflect the odd bullet or two while it's at it.

This, the newest addition to the Getac range, forgoes the tablet functions of its V100 in favour of a traditional 13.3in laptop design. But the Getac B300 is, shall we say, a little different.

This is a laptop designed to be tough. Really tough. Cast your eye over its dimensions, and the first thing that'll strike you is its stout, armoured frame. With the lid closed, it stands an imposing 60mm off the desk, and its weight, a not inconsiderable 3.56kg, effortlessly rivals that of your average 17in desktop replacement.

But while a desktop replacement will rarely stray from the safety of a mains socket, the Getac B300 is designed to go anywhere. It's not just vacuous marketing fluff, either - Getac tests all its equipment to the US Department of Defense Test Method Standards, and the B300 complies with the MIL-STD-810F standards for resilience to temperature, humidity, altitude, shock, drop and vibration. This is in addition to an IP54 rating, which guarantees that the B300 is capable of operating in the dustiest or sandiest of environments, while also shrugging off splashes of water from any direction.

We set our benchmarks running and proceeded to pour cups of water liberally all over the B300's keyboard, to zero effect. Upping the ante, we tested the Getac's 75cm drop protection by tipping the Getac off a desk; again, it carried on working as if nothing had happened. As a final punishment, we recruited the heaviest member of the PC Pro reviews team - a svelte 17 stone - to deposit his full weight on the Getac. It barely even creaked.

A strong, substantial handle protrudes from the front edge and, in tandem with the burly build, allows it to be easily carted to and fro. Exercise caution not to kneecap yourself while doing so, however, as the Getac's rock-hard edges can leave a nasty bruise, as we found to our cost.

Perusing the B300's specifications and optional extras is more than enough to reassure of its hard-knock credentials. Not many laptops can boast a feature which allows users to navigate Windows while wearing night-vision goggles, but the B300 does just that. And if by any chance you should find yourself sneaking around while wearing those aforementioned night-vision goggles, there's also a stealth button which turns off the screen and status lights to help you avoid risking detection

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by the enemy. Handy.

Move out of the dark into the staggeringly bright sun of the desert, however, and the Getac's got that covered as well. In addition to a light sensor which automatically adjusts screen brightness to suit your surroundings, our model also boasted the optional Sunlight Readable display. Dab the toggle button above the keyboard's top edge, and the display goes from impressively bright (500cd/m2) to blindingly so (a ludicrous 1,200cd/m2).

If this makes the B300 sound rather like a Bond gadget, that's not to say that the Getac doesn't have all the basics covered too. Its specification is centred around an Intel Core 2 Duo L7500 processor, 2GB of memory and a 120GB hard disk. That means performance is fairly unexciting but plenty for most tasks, as a benchmark result of 0.96 testifies, but it also serves to extend the B300's battery life to impressive lengths.

With that low-voltage processor and a 7,800mAh battery safely secured in its own dust-sealed compartment, the Getac lasted over seven hours away from the mains. Upping the ante and putting it under the strain of our heavy usage test only reduced that to three and a half hours. Replace the optical drive with the optional extra battery, and even the most demanding of users should find that the B300's stamina is ample.

Even the keyboard and trackpad are impressive elements in their own right. The half-height enter key gets a thumbs down, but the positive feeling keys go a long way towards making up for it. The dainty trackpad is free from any complaints though, and the waterproof rubberised buttons feel good under the thumb.

When it comes to strength, stamina and versatility, the B300 delivers in spades, but it's not perfect. The 13.3in touchscreen (the touch functions being yet another of the myriad optional extras) is limited to a rather dated native resolution of 1,024 x 768 pixels. Given the B300's potential applications, legibility is probably a higher priority than a roomy desktop, but if it's a truly do-it-all, go-anywhere laptop you're after, some will doubtless find the resolution a touch limiting.

We're a little unsure as to how useful the touchscreen really is, too. It does respond to the very firm prod of a fingertip, but we had to resort to the supplied stylus or the tip of a fingernail to get reliable results. It's a far cry from the tactile, responsive charms of Dell's Latitude XT.

But the beauty of the B300 is its very ability to be tailored to a particular task. All the optional extras come at a cost over and above that of the hefty basic price, above, but if you need GPS, HSDPA, secondary batteries and hard drives, vehicular docking stations and the like, the B300 can oblige.

Let's face it, very few people actually need a fully rugged laptop, and the B300's cost is daunting enough to send the average consumer running for the hills. But in environments where rough treatment, dust, damp and extreme temperature would leave other laptops needing a trip to the repair shop, or the scrapyard, the B300 is a revelation.