Lenovo rugged notebooks

Lenovo on Monday announced that eight of its ThinkPad notebooks, including the X200, X301, X200s, X200 Tablet, T400, T500, R400 and SL300 meet the US military's ruggedness standards, proving that each of them is particularly resistant to vibration, dust, pressure, humidity, temperature and dust extremes. Some of the models also bring along added protection measures inherent to their designs such as an airbag-like protection system, anti-skip hard drives and a roll cage. The most popular ThinkPad, the T400, also gets an optional low-glare, high-brightness 680-nit display to make it more viewable in direct sunlight for use in the field.

All eight models were tested at 15,000 feet above sea level for low pressure resistance, cycled at 95 percent humidity, jostled while operating to test shock resistance for the shock-mounted hard drives and baked at up to 140F and frozen to -4F. Dust was also blown at them for an extended period of time. A spill-resistant keyboard can be specified on select models.

All eight laptops sport Intel processors from the Centrino 2 era and can be ordered with additional safeguards like solid-state drives. The ThinkPad X200 Tablet is additionally the first convertible notebook with the option of WiMAX for those who want 4G wireless access.

Pricing for the ThinkPad T400 with the 680-nit screen starts at about $1,350.

By Electronista Staff