GD Itronix reengineers its toughest, fully-rugged notebook

GD Itronix has released a reengineered version of its fully rugged notebook PC, which is designed for heavy-duty use and abuse in demanding outdoor or vehicle applications.

The GD8000 is a follow-on to the GoBook XR-1, launched before General Dynamics’ acquisition of rugged vendor Itronix. Overall, the new device includes a more powerful Intel CPU, greatly improved battery life, and engineering that makes for a tougher notebook that can resist higher and more frequent drops, is better sealed against liquids and dust, and has improved resistance to vibration.

(GD Itronix also recently announced a new semi-rugged notebook, a class of device often targeted at in-vehicle mountings or indoor locations such as warehouses and hospitals.)

New to the GD8000 is a somewhat larger display that measures 13.3 inches diagonally (up from 12 inches), with standard aspect. Anything larger would be hard to fit safely on an internal vehicle mounting that would avoid airbag inflations on either side of the mount, according to company officials. The screen technology is unchanged: Itronix’s DynaVue display uses several techniques to create a touch, color screen that is easily viewable even in direct sunlight.

The new notebook has a thicker magnesium casing and internal walls. All corners now are much more heavily rounded. Both changes greatly increase the strength of the casing and frame. In addition, engineers add more polycarbonate composite on the machine’s flat surfaces, which acts as a kind of shock-absorbing buffer to make the PC more resistant to being dropped or dropped on.

(Read more about the art of engineering rugged mobile devices.)

The changes led to some dramatic improvements, according to Tim Hill, group manager of product marketing for GD Itronix, based in Spokane, Wash. The conventional stress test is dropping a notebook that is turned off from a height of 36 inches, on all sides, 26 drops in all. But, says Hill, that standard lets you use up to five separate notebooks to get through all the drops.

By contrast, a single GD8000 was dropped, turned on and running, from a height of 42 inches 26 times. It was still ticking.

Engineers also reworked all seals to use silicon, which stays behaviorally consistent across a wide temperature range, and ensured that each seal compresses fully along its entire length. In the military-standard “water tightness test,” the GD8000 withstood a 4 hour test in which a total of 30 gallons of water was blown against the notebook at 40 mph.

The notebook now comes with integrated 802.11n Wi-Fi. You can optionally order Bluetooth and an integrated cellular radio. Itronix designed the interior to be able to accept Qualcomm’s Gobi 2000 cellular chip when it’s released later this year. The Gobi can support either of the two main cellular networks, GSM or CDMA. Users will be able to open up the GD8000, snap in the Gobi module from their mobile carrier and then reseal the notebook.

The new processor is the Intel SL9400 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo CPU. The change is important not only because applications can run faster, but also because the new CPU is a low-voltage chip, drawing much less power than the previous one. Overall, says Hill, end users can see up to 10 hours of use from Itronix’ 9-cell battery, with the screen at 100% brightness. With the Wi-Fi radio turned on, that drops to a still respectable 5 hours. By contrast, the previous model could run about 2 hours and 45 minutes, Hill says.