GETAC's E100 tablet PC won't bog you down, will take a beating

Prior to today, it had certainly been a hot, hot minute since we'd heard a peep out of GETAC, but here we are peeking the firm's second new product in as many days. The E100 tablet PC weighs in at just three pounds, but this dainty gizmo reportedly meets MIL-STD-810F and IP54 standards for "durability and protection against dirt, dust, water, motion, vibration, temperature and other factors that would severely damage or disable a commercial-grade PC." Beyond its tough attire, you'll find an 8.4-inch SVGA display (optional sunlight readable) with 800 nits of brightness, an 800MHz Intel Stealey processor, up to 1GB of DDR2 RAM, 60 to 100GB shock-resistant hard drive, 802.11b/g WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 and optional WWAN / GPS to boot. Sadly, we're not even given a clue as to how much this bad boy will cost, but we'll go ahead and assume "pricey" to be on the safe side.

[Image courtesy of RuggedPCReview]

[Reader @ Jan 23rd 2008 3:23AM]

Hopefully not too much as the specs sure aren't that amazing.

[Brian Eun @ Jan 23rd 2008 3:25AM]

They let me poor water on the back of it while it was running at their Tablet PC users meeting @ CES. It kept on running like nothing happened to it. And they also have a video of them just beating the crap out the thing, and it kept on ticking. One of the tortures was running through a car wash repeatedly with it strapped to the sunroof running, and filming it from below. :D

[spass @ Jan 23rd 2008 3:25AM]

Weather proofing... Fine!
Still no excuse for the "so 90's" cheap design.

[ethana2 @ Jan 23rd 2008 4:20AM]

Waterproof is something we should see more often.

...Still looking for my dream tablet....
-dual core 64 bit IBM PPC processor on 45nm process
-Ubuntu Hardy preinstalled
-webcam built in
-two mics built in
-thumbprint scanner
-multitouch precision pressure screen w/ stylus
-8 GB SSD
-1 GB of RAM
-ATi stream co-processor
-waterproof
-no optical drive
-160Wh Li-ion smart cell
-(SATA HDD bay if I decide to store music or video on the thing)

[Freerefill @ Jan 23rd 2008 8:08AM]

GETAC's E100 tablet PC is never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna turn around and hurt you.

[DannyBoyUK @ Jan 23rd 2008 8:45AM]

Why would anyone want a tablet pc with what looks like a mobile phone keypad on it?

[Brian Eun @ Jan 23rd 2008 8:51AM]

One thing the article's author should have mentioned from the get go is that this is only for vertical markets. It's definitely not meant for regular consumers. That's why it has the ultra rugged casing and number pad.

The customers lined up for this device they told me about are: The military, NYC Sanitation workers, Fire Fighters, and the like. They have no plans to market or make it available to us normal folks.

This is also why the device will cost thousands, not hundreds.

[MobileDemand @ Jan 23rd 2008 11:54AM]

Brian Eun - actually, although the GETAC e100 looks very similar, the tablet that you saw and poured water on at the CES Tablet PC Meetup was the MobileDemand xTablet T8700 model that was just announced as well! You had spoken to me about the vertical markets, customers, and the car wash video.

The xTablet T8700 model is a general system upgrade to the xTablet T8600 model that has been shipping for 16 months. GETAC's recent release of the overal similar form factor and integrated keypad is 16 months after MobileDemand released the xTablet T8600 model.

You can see more information at:
http://www.ruggedtabletpc.com

See the YouTube Car Wash video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAuHcA9t9og

We are placing this video in higher quality plus other drop videos on our web-site within a day or two.

[Wwhat @ Jan 23rd 2008 1:06PM]

Strange how hard it seems to be to make something waterproof, you'd think it would be simple, I mean anybody can make an aquarium with some plastic/glass and some appropriate glue, and that is the same principle except there you keep the water in.
Of course you'd need to cool it but you can just make the heatsink expose to the outside and make the edges of that heatsink seal watertight to the casing.
As for vibration robustness, how hard is that? it's all chips/parts soldered to the surface, those don't just fly off.

Is the mac air waterproof incidentally? with so few ports and its non-userservicable battery it would seem an ideal setup for such.

[Solomon Williams @ Jan 28th 2008 10:53AM]

Anyone managed to get hold of the new Toshiba M700 portege - have been following this one since it was announced last year - there is a demo site up at at www.toshiba.co.uk/m700, the touch screen is supposed to be excellent - any thoughts anyone??