NEC VersaPro UltraLite ruggedized laptop

NEC has been making lightweight notebooks for about as long as the category has existed (the first UltraLite came out in 1989), but the company hasn't exactly been a leader in the rugged notebook front dominated by the likes of Panasonic's Toughbook. Now, with the VersaPro UltraLite notebook (or should we stay consistent and call it a NoteBook?), the company hopes to change that. The 2.2 pound notebook can, according to NEC, resist pressure of up to 330 pounds, and has a magnesium frame and hard-drive shock-absorbers. The notebook also includes biometric security, a 1.2GHz Pentium M, and a measly 20GB hard drive and 256MB of RAM. Those specs make it kind of weak, meaning the main reason to pick this up is to drop it. Anyone wanna toss one and see if it's as rugged as NEC claims?

[Via Akihabara News]

[Gobbler @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

How much?

[Dan @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

VersaPro, eh? You know, we sell a software product called VersaPro...

[dELL @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

I disagree that it's a good notebook. You would think it would get good battery life, with its transflective display. But the battery life is abysmal! I even got the extra battery (very expensive!), that clamps on underneath. Even with the two batteries, low power, and display always set to reflective, the battery life was VERY short. My main battery recently pooped out completely, and I had to buy a new one (also costly).

[Windows Update Advisor @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

Yet another "military" grade notebook... or wannabe ;)

Maybe Panasonic is a better choice for this kind of shock/drop resistant notebook. Saw their demo on a notebook being torture/drop/rinse and still working. Just my 2 cents