In a world filled with glossy covers and aluminium unibodies, we find that far too many electronics are incredible fragile and delicate. If you’re not too careful, you’ll break it and you lose out on quite a large sum of money. Not everyone is going to be interested in getting the toughest of the tough, but it doesn’t get much tougher than Getac. We demonstrated this when we visited the Getac headquarters in Taiwan last June and now we get to beat up one of their V100 in our own labs. The company is taking direct aim at the rugged segment currently occupied by a certain “ToughBook” line. But clearly, they aren’t the only game in town.
Features and Specifications
And so, we find ourselves taking a look at the Getac V100 fully rugged convertible tablet/notebook PC. While it shares the same fundamental form factor as something like the Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t, it’s obvious that this is a completely different beast. It’s built tough for tough situations.
In fact, it is MIL-STD-810G and IP65 compliant, meaning that it is good to go for military applications, surveying, police work, and all sorts of other outdoor situations that could have it face some pretty rough handling. The 10.4-inch XGA display uses Getac’s 1200 NITS QuadraClear LED technology, meaning you can see it very easily in the sun (yes, it’s matte too). It’s a glove-friendly resistive multi-touch display, so it’s not the same tech as, say, an iPhone.
Rounding out the specs and features are an Intel Core i7-640UM vPro dual-core 1.2 GHz processor (with Turbo Boost up to 2.23GHz), 2GB of RAM, integrated Intel HD graphics, magnesium alloy casing, full-size 83-key keyboard, fingerprint reader, WiFi-N, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, integrated reversible 2.0MP webcam, and a 7800mAh lithium-ion smart battery.
Pricing for the Getac V100 tablets run anywhere from $3699 US for the standard edition (VLD111) which gives you a standard 2GB of RAM, 320GB hard drive as above. Spend $4649 US for the top end version (VWD128) and you now get a backlit keyboard for those military covert ops and 3G Gobi 2000, Dual Pass-thru (WLAN/WWAN) antennas and a GPS . SSD options are also available for additional cost. This is all topped off with a full 5 year bumper to bumper waranty.
Unboxing the Beast
Check out the unboxing video above to get a good look at not only the Getac V100, but also the accessories that come included in the box. It is a little ironic that they used some foam inserts for protection, but we should note that this is not the shock and drop-proof model. You need to upgrade to the SSD for that.
Aside from the V100 rugged convertible itself, you get the power cable and power brick, a cleaning cloth, some sort of strap to hold the tablet in one hand, a shoulder strap, a retractable stylus, and the sizable 7800mAh battery.
Protecting All Its Ports
A big part of the rough and tough exterior of the Getac V100 is that it is able to withstand the elements. Put it in the middle of a sandstorm in Death Valley and it’ll keep on trucking. Brave the Amazon rainforest with torrential rainfall and it won’t skip a tick. At least, that’s the idea.
We put some of these ideas to the test a little later on in the review, but it’s important to note that in addition to having a waterproof screen and keyboard, all the ports are covered by rubber flaps. As you can imagine, getting grains of sand and salty river water in your USB port isn’t such a good thing.
What’s interesting is that while having a decent assortment of ports and connectivity options, you’ll find only one dedicated USB 2.0 port. The eSATA port doubles for your USB purposes, but it would have been nice to have more than two USB ports. It’s a minor quibble, I suppose, since real world applications of the V100 wouldn’t be peripheral-heavy, but it is worth noting.
General Impressions: Notebook Mode
Even though it is quite bulky for a 10.4-inch notebook, the Getac V100 isn’t all that heavy. Don’t get me wrong; it’s definitely heavier than consumer-oriented products like the Gigabyte M912, but at 5.0 pounds, it’s not any heavier than many notebooks. The unit is also completely silent thanks to a fan-less design.
I’ve grown accustomed to wide-aspect displays in recent years, so working on a standard aspect display was a little jarring at first. Aside from that, the display can be very bright, the full-size keyboard is reasonably comfortable, and the five hot function keys toward the front of the device are quite handy. It’s also nice that the webcam can rotate.
You really do feel the hefty construction when using a product like this. There’s a reason why they cost what they do.
General Impressions: Tablet Mode
If you were to approach me with the Getac V100 a couple of years ago, I would have told you that the Tablet PC side of its equation is pretty much par for the course. You get a resistive touchscreen that works best when you utilize the retractable stylus. You can use handwriting recognition or an on-screen virtual keyboard. Tap, tap, and go.
There’s also an orientation sensor, so when you hold the tablet in portrait mode, Windows 7 will orient itself as such. Flip it over and you get landscape mode (even “upside down” should you feel so inclined). The resistive touchscreen interface is pretty standard in the industrial world, but now that we’ve grown accustomed to capacitive touchscreens, the resistive experience is jarring.
Getac went with a resistive screen understandably though, of course, since it needs to be “glove friendly” for when users are in harsher environments. This allows for greater precision, but it’s not nearly as responsive as what you’d get on a Galaxy Tab or Apple iPad. This is to be expected. However, it’s definitely worlds better than a cheap Android tablet.
Torture Session: Water Test and Drop Test
So, how tough is tough? Just as we cooked the ioSafe SoloPRO external hard drive in the oven, we had to put the Getac V100 through its paces too.
The first test is the water test. In the video above, you can see the Getac V100 being put under a running tap for several minutes. I try tilting the V100, potentially exposing the screen, keyboard, and ports to water damage.
The second torture session involves the drop test. To do this, we dropped the notebook from a height of three feet, both open and closed, checking to see if it was still operational after each successive drop. Of course, this test is nowhere as rigorous as tossing it down the side of a canyon, or running over it with a car, but you get the idea. And it’s clear that most consumer grade notebooks would not survive unscathed with these tests.
The verdict? Yes, it’s pretty tough. We would have liked to have taken the torture tests a few steps further, but we weren’t given the green light to do so. But if you do want to see more fun with tablets, you can check out our GETAC HQ Tour video where we manage to get the execs to do evil things to their own products.
Battery Life Benchmark
To test the battery life, I ran a 720p HD video on a continuous loop in Windows Media Player. The Wi-Fi radio was left on but the connection was dormant. Both screen brightness and volume level were cranked up to the maximum too. The HD AVI video file was just under an hour in length.
Based on these circumstances, the included 7800mAh lithium-ion battery was able to hold up for about two and a half hours before the computer hibernated on its own. This is based on the power setting configured so that hibernation is automatic when battery level is detected to be less than 5%.
Performance Benchmarks: 3DMark06, PCMark05, CrystalDiskMark, SFIV
Running through the rest of our usual battery of benchmarks and test, we discover the following.
The Getac V100 was able to achieve a 3DMark score of 1410. You won’t be able to do much in terms of graphical heavy lifting on the road with a score like that, but it’s much better than the 153 3DMarks earned by the Lenovo S10-3t. Of course, we are comparing an i7 machine with an Atom machine. Other 3DMark results include a SM2.0 score of 437, HDR/SM3.0 score of 578, and a CPU score of 1518.
Even though this rig sports a quad core Core i7 processor, its PCMark05 performance leaves something to be desired. The CPU score of 4510 is decidedly lower than the 6641 earned by the i5-powered Samsung R780. The clock speed on the CPU is quite different, of course, giving us only 1.2GHz of battery saving performance. There was no overall PCMark score, but it did get a memory score of 4735, graphics score of 1964, and HDD score of 26430.
In a sequential test of 1000MB data packets, the 25GB data partition on the hard drive was able to get 206.7MB/s read speed and 86.05MB/s write speed, as recorded by CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1. Given the lower scores on PCMark and 3DMark, the performance boost offered by the SSD upgrade probably wouldn’t be as noticeable under real world conditions; the shock resistance, however, would prove useful to certain users.
Obviously, the Getac V100 was never intended to be a gaming rig, but I ran the Street Fighter IV benchmark anyway. With maximum settings, it rarely broke the 10fps threshold. Even with the lowest settings (including no background), it scored an “E” with 19fps. It’s definitely no match for the “Dragon Punch”.
Closing Thoughts
It’s not really all that fair to compare regular consumer-oriented notebooks to a beast of a machine like the Getac V100. It’s not even fair to compare it with business-oriented laptops and tablet PCs, but it’s in an entirely different category.
From a performance standpoint, hardcore users are going to be left disappointed. You won’t be able to play any games more complex than Bejeweled on here. It’s better than an Atom-powered netbook, certainly, but it’s anything but a hardcore gaming rig. That said, given the typical applications where it would find itself, the Getac V100 should be able to hold its own. With a bumper to bumper warranty and a starting price of $3699, you definitely pay for this toughness.
The fanless design, heavily rubberized body, covers for all the ports, waterproof full-size keyboard, and military grade ruggedness make this machine suitable for everywhere from Siberia to Sudan. It’s not for the average Joe at Starbucks, but if the build quality of the V100 is any indication, Panasonic’s ToughBook could have some serious competition on its hands. If we had a “Tough as Nails” award, that’s what I’d give the V100. But for now, we’re going to give it our “High Peformance” award because it truly performs at a high standard of toughness.
Pros
- Fully rugged design takes tons of abuse
- Quick access buttons on front for brightness, virtual keyboard, etc.
- Locking clasp prevents accidental opening
- Relatively compact and lightweight for a rugged PC
Cons
- Mediocre benchmark performance
- Make sure rubber flaps stay closed
- Touchscreen interface is clunky (as with all Windows 7 tablet PCs)
- Understandably very expensive compared to non-rugged notebooks
Overall Rating: 8.0 / 10.0
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Getac V100 Fully Rugged Convertible Tablet PC – Photo Gallery
