Dell Refreshes Rugged Notebook Range With 1000-nit Displays, USB-C, & Dual Hot-Swap Batteries

Everyone secretly wants an indestructible laptop, but there are circumstances where they are a requirement – thing is, actually making them is extremely tough. Dell’s Rugged range are not new, but are a long-running product line meant to live up to the expectations of some very hard work conditions.

Rugged laptops, generally speaking, are not built for high performance, and they are most certainly not cheap either, but they are solidly built, and depending on the model, can be extremely durable. Dell’s latest refresh is one that updates the internal hardware to the latest generation of Intel CPUs, but also connectivity, and a few accessibility enhancements for improved quality of life in operation.

There are three main features that all three of Dell’s latest Rugged refresh include, which are what pulled you in with the title. The first is the inclusion of USB Type-C, which at this point shouldn’t be much of a surprise. It’s a fairly robust port in of itself, but the added benefit of it being reversible helps significantly.

Next up is the 1000-nit displays. Displays on Rugged notebooks have been a bit of sore point, as they have often been low resolution and dimly lit for the more extreme working conditions. Dell has opted for full HD displays across the board (1920×1080), with very high-powered backlights. At 1000-nits, they should be visible even in direct sunlight. The digitizer should also be more glove-friendly too.

That backlight will certainly chew up the battery more than usual though, however all the new Rugged designs can be fitted with dual, hot-swappable batteries. This isn’t strictly new, and it’s not standard across the board, but it is at least now available across the range. Being able to swap out the batteries while the device is still in use, is something that a lot of people have been asking for a while. With both batteries, up to 14 hours of operation time can be had, but that will depend on the hardware, settings, and applications used.

Beyond those three main features, the three new models diverge somewhat into their respective classes, but all come with the option of Intel 8th-gen Core CPUs, going from dual-core i3s up to i7 quad cores, with optional vPro where needed. On top of that, they can each be fitted with AMD RX540 GPUs for more graphics intensive applications – so you are not reliant on Intel’s built-in IGP.

At the top-end is the Latitude 7424 Rugged Extreme Notebook. It’s the physically largest laptop of the bunch, as it has the most ruggedized options going, being IP65 compliant, but has undergone extended drop tests, rain, dust, sand, vibrations, shocks, extended humidity, salt fog, high altitude, explosive atmosphere, solar radiation, and extreme thermal shocks. The I/O ports have protective covers, there’s space for SD and SIM cards, and a PCMCIA or Express card slot. Storage options can go up to 4TB of SSD storage, but that’s spread over two M.2 NVMe drives, and a 1TB SATA drive.

The smaller siblings are the Latitude 5424 and 5420, which are for less demanding environments, being only IP52 rated. They can still take a beating with the toughened shells though, but the 5420 can do it all while being 22% lighter due to the removal of optical media and internal SATA drives. These notebooks can be fitted with the same CPU and graphics as the bigger brother, and even the same high-brightness display.

What’s becoming more common though is the inclusions of privacy shutters on the integrated webcams, and strangely enough, RGB backlighting on the keyboards. Yes, even enterprise customers want RGB keyboards it seems.

These new Rugged designs from Dell are available now, and start from $1400 for the basic models, but the prices do scale quickly as you add more features.