Review: Dell Latitude 14 Rugged Extreme Is All That

One of latest ruggedized Dell laptops to hit the market is the Latitude 14 Rugged Extreme, and it's a tank. Dell has been in the rugged laptop business since at least 2008, but who knew? Panasonic seems to grab all the rugged-device headlines. Nevertheless, the folks at Round Rock have built a laptop that's rock-solid, and the CRN Test Center took it for a ride and gave it some good whacks.

On first glance, it's obvious that Dell engineers put ding protection over bulkiness on their list of design priorities. Thick rubber bumpers adorn every corner of the device, top and bottom, front and back, helping to achieve its MIL-STD 810G rating. It's also IP-65 rated and MIL-STD-461F certified. Together, that all means it can withstand electromagnetic interference, driving rain, blowing dust and sand, continuous humidity, salty fog, high altitudes, low temperatures and shocks of all kinds. Dell also claims that it can take as many as 78 drops from as high as 6 feet.

A sturdy, rubberized handle slides out to facilitate heavily gloved hands while adding impact protection to the unit's front side and its single, front-firing speaker. The lid locks closed with a spring-loaded rocker hatch that's easy to operate with one hand, gloved or otherwise. The same gloved hand can easily operate its one-point resistive touch screen using the included stylus with curly lanyard.

[Related: Review: Xplore RangerX Rugged Android Tablet Is Out Of This World ]

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The system Dell sent for testing was equipped with an Intel Core i5-4300U, a dual-core, four-thread processor running at 1.9GHz. All Haswell, Core i3 and i7 are options. Also preinstalled was 64-bit Windows 7 Professional, 8 GB of 1,600MHz LPDDR3 RAM, Nvidia GeForce GT 720M GPU with 2 GB dedicated memory, tray-loading DVD-RW drive, a 256 GG SSD and the 9-cell lithium ion battery.

Those are just some of the options. Built into all models are VGA and HDMI output ports, a headset jack, dual USB 2.0 and 3.0, dual Gbit Ethernet, dual RS-232 and a 54mm ExpressCard reader. Ports are dispersed about the unit's sides and rear. Two DIMM slots support up to 16 GB. Its bright 1,366-x-768 display is easily readable outdoors and offers a native resolution that matches more closely with apps for ham-handed touch users than with viewing of precision images.

Ports, drives and bays are protected by a uniform set of metal-hinged, weatherproof doors that open downward and lay flat so as not to block what's inside or impede connections. All doors open in the same way, by pressing down on a sturdy spring-latch that also locks a closed door when slid sideways. Docking contacts on the bottom surface connect the unit to desk and car docks for Dell's rugged and semirugged family of laptops.

A pair of holes on the front surface accept carry straps and other "Quick Release" accessories, a nice Dell innovation. Status LEDs for power, hard drive, battery and network are clearly marked and visible with the lid open or closed. At 3.5-x-2 inches, the touch pad could be a bit bigger, but its buttons are ample. To its right are an NFC sensor and option fingerprint scanner. The full-sized keyboard is backlit (in red, green or blue) and includes a stealth-mode function key that blackens all lights (and disconnects Wi-Fi) but leaves all other systems in operation.

To test battery life, we topped off the 9-cell battery, cranked the brightness to full, fired up a digital movie from the hard drive and set the player to loop continuously. In the power settings, we told the screen never to dim and the system never to sleep, but left all other power settings alone. Then we pulled the power cord, launched our battery logger and left the system alone to drain. It ran for seven hours and 52 minutes.

The Rugged Extreme made it onto CRN's list of the Top 10 performing laptops of all time, but just barely. With a top Geekbench 2.4 score of 8,651, it knocked Hewlett-Packard's EliteBook 8570p out of 10th place. But with its rugged exterior, think of the Rugged Extreme as a tortoise compared with the hare of faster laptops. It won't often lead the race, but it will deliver steady performance and finish in one piece. And it stays cool; the tested unit never got hotter than 93 degrees.

List pricing for Dell's Latitude 14 Rugged Extreme starts at around $3,655 with a Core i3 processor, 4 GB of RAM and 128 GB of SSD. The price as tested would be $4,705. For deployment to the harshest environments or hostile, explosive work zones, the CRN Test Center recommends Dell rugged solutions.

PUBLISHED OCT. 24, 2014