Review: Getac's Rugged B300 Can Take a Beating

Rugged notebooks are no exception. While Panasonic tends to steal the limelight with its line of Toughbooks, there are other players. The Test Center reviewed a rugged B300 notebook from Getac, a joint venture between GE-Aerospace and Mitac.

From the outside, the B300 looks like it belongs in a spy thriller or science-fiction drama. With a silver-gray magnesium alloy chassis, rubber protrusions and a retractable handle, the notebook looks like a steel briefcase with a cloak-and-dagger feel. This is one unit that means serious business.

Tipping the scales at about 7.8 pounds, the B300 is heavy. Every single opening, compartment and port is sealed to protect it from leaks, dust and curious fingers. Even the fingerprint reader next to the trackpad is protected by a sliding cover. The Ethernet port and USB ports have their own snap-on cover, as does the AC adapter port, which is separate from where the microphone and headphone jacks are. In short, there are covers all around the side of the laptop. The removable optical drive and battery has a hard cover instead of the rubber ones that the ports have. The optical drive can be removed to put in an additional battery.

The B300 complies with the U.S. Defense Department's MIL-STD-810F standard and the IP54 ruggedness standard—it is resistant to dust, water spray, humidity, shock, vibration and can operate in temperatures from minus 20 degrees to 60 degrees Centigrade. Reviewers spilled drinks over the closed notebook and noted how well the covers protected the ports.

Reviewers also dropped the notebook from desk height while both open and closed, jumped up and down a few times on top of the closed unit, and spilled water and juice over the keyboard. Not only did the unit not show any wear or damage, it was impressively easy to clean up, too.

Sealing the computer this way means there's no ventilation. Even so, it didn't get any hotter than a standard notebook after two hours of use—it's not cool by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not uncomfortable to use.

This laptop features a 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo L7500 processor, 2 GB of memory, a 120-GB hard drive, and an Intel 965 integrated-graphics chipset. On the Geekbench benchmarking test, the BC300 scored 1,887, which is solidly in the middle of the pack for this kind of a processor and memory. Considering its hefty price tag (to match its weight) of $,3500, there are other machines at this price point with better performance. However, this is a case of paying for the toughness, not performance.

The integrated graphics chipset limits the notebook's ability to handle complex 3-D graphics, but for general usage, it performed respectably. The B300's 13.3-inch screen with 1,024 x 768 resolution was easy on the eyes and clear.

The B300 has three USB ports, PC Card and ExpressCard slots, memory card reader, four-pin FireWire port, external aerial connector, Wi-Fi switch, microphone and earphone sockets, Ethernet and modem jacks, a fingerprint reader, a pair of serial ports and a docking connector.

The battery life is similarly impressive, lasting 5 hours and 47 minutes. The battery life was measured by playing a movie continuously using VLC and with power-saving settings turned off. The B300 also sports an "Eco" button that extends the battery life by turning off all the communications modules, lowering the screen brightness and slowing down the processor.

Despite its price, this laptop will keep chugging under the most difficult conditions, and that's the kind or reliability and peace of mind some customers require.