I just paid $300 us for this chunk
machine from 13 years ago which is pretty good for an indestructible laptop
indestructible you
say you know what challenge accepted but
before we test Keith's claims there's legitimately a lot to love about these
things they're rated to withstand rain heat humidity freezing temperatures gild
force winds and even gravity at least from a limited height
and specifically when dropped onto a 2in thick piece of plywood which strangely
specific if you think about it and also raises some interesting questions if
these tests from the military standards
test methods are so prescriptive do they
really translate into better Real World durability and since they're strictly
pass fail tests what kind of nonbreaking
damage might occur to the device as we approach its limits can it surpass the
testing limits in any major way while still being able to function well enough
to open a Word document or a game or the
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see them given the specs of this thing not to mention it's Antiquated design I
was very surprised to discover that the price I paid wasn't terribly out of line
with the market and as it turns out Keith was right that there are
Industries where people still love these machines and will pay dearly to replace
them like construction law enforcement and agriculture which makes a ton of
sense if you think about it if you only need a laptop that's powerful enough to
do word processing small spreadsheets or
basic web browsing your primary concern isn't going to be how many gigz it has
but rather its ability to survive but
how do we quantify who makes the most durable machine I mean you could just
buy computers from everyone give them hell and see what happens but developing
a consistent test methodology for that would be timec consuming expensive and
completely unnecessary when the US military already did it for you given
their tendency to use equipment in a variety of less than ideal conditions in
1962 the United States Air Force released the first version of military
standard 810 environmental test methods
for Aerospace and ground equipment the purpose was on its face simple create
tests that ensure that devices will continue to function in the same
environments where soldiers can function and were applicable make sure that they
and the soldiers who rely on them won't blow up but that focused purpose has
left some let's call them gaps in the methodology while mil standard 81 does
encourage tailoring and it includes guidance to modify each test situation
to make it more appropriate for the device and your use case it does still
include guidelines that could make it easier for a less than robust product to
pass take the drop test as an example of this it specifies that a device must be
able to survive Falls of four five and six feet why do you guys think I needed
a ladder to drop something from 6 feet okay it doesn't matter the point is that
seems reasonable on the surface except that every drop gets done onto plywood
that is exactly 2 in thick placed on top of
concrete which is extremely specific and
while it's supposed to be dropped 26 times at each height up to five samples
can be used and those same five samples
do not have to be used at each height of the drop test that means you get up to
15 Mulligans across 78 total drops
meaning with some RNG luck you could have them break almost every five drops
and still pass the spec as for our unit
you can see it's still working after multiple takes of our 4-foot drop and to
their credit Panasonic states that they use the same single unit for all 78
drops time to drive 5
ft but it's important to keep in mind
that like other tests in the standard this is meant to and I quote provide a
degree of confidence that the device can
physically and functionally withstand the relatively infrequent non-repetitive
shocks encountered in handling transportation and service environments
uh Von can i b you for a sec so here hold on I actually have to open this's
up have a look oh so in other words what I'm trying to
say is it's not an invitation to use dropping your laptop down the stairs as
a party trick Jesus scared me feel kind
of bad giving her without even closing the lid but hey you don't pick when your
laptop Falls uh stylus took the Brun to that one but the machine
itself pretty much unscathed in other words these tests are designed to ensure
that the item should work in the normal day-to-day operating conditions of the
US Military and nothing more than that which has led to a significant amount of
consumer confusion because these mil standard 810 tests have been used to
tack dubious military grade will never
fail marketing jargon onto everything from disappearing fighter jets to
tacticool sunglasses and it gives people the wrong idea I mean some of the tests
like the low temperature one that's running behind me only go down to -10° F
about- 23 in real units which is warmer
than the annual coldest day experienced at the military base in Min not North
Dakota and warmer than a lot of days here in Canada now nonoperating tests
are run at lower temperatures down to -60 fah but that doesn't validate that
your system's going to work in a cow it only validates that it won't break in
storage if you decide to keep it in your cryogenic freezer overnight how do you
know it's cold uh I don't know uh maybe
tou your T to it oh that'd be funny no don't do it don't do
it didn't stick you can definitely tell she's cold
though let's get a closeup of just showing the uh the touchscreen similarly
the humidity test is fantastic if you want to make sure that a laptop will
survive hot dank environments but as a
non-operational test it won't actually tell you if you can build a spreadsheet
in the Amazon rainforest it only tests if it can survive being stored at 95%
relative humidity cycled between 86 and
140° F or 30 to 60 C it doesn't check if
it can survive being used there did ours
pass one sec
should be pretty tropical in here woo oh
it stinks I love this power
button oh yeah I mean wasn't in there
very long and that's not nearly as
challenging as our next test okay so now we can set it to 60 look at that CPU is
running at 77° playing back crab Rave and we're not
even close to maximum temperatures yet and there it is given the way modern
Electronics struggle even at room temperature I wouldn't be surprised if
this thing is turned off I actually can't see it from here oh that's hot wow no way not only
is she totally fine other than being pretty warm to the touch but it only
went up another 6° so I guess those fans
are just working wait there are no
fans how does it cool this thing impressive now as a foreign civilian I'm
not going to pass judgment on the process or the exact state of things at
the moment but I do think it is fair to say that part of the reason for this
inconsistency is that the standards documentation has ballooned to more than
a thousand pages over the years as additional things get tacked on and if
you want to know how or why certain tests were decided on you need to read
an additional 200 plus pages from Herbert Eggbert's book the history and
rationale of Mill standard 810 with a
riveting title like that you know it's going to be a real page Turner anyway
Keith has gotten to be right A lot of times in this video so
far frankly I'm tired of it so I think
it's time to go full smooth grain and prove that if we ditch the scientific
testing and Go full unscientific this can in fact be
destroyed here we go no no no I need 2 Ines of plywood we're not barbaran Ian
here let's try 6t though the limits of the test
spec oh that's hard to watch hey something popped off SD card slot PCM St
really let's do it again totally fine how about with some
Pizzazz oh no the strap nope not broken
let's push it further how about 8 ft oh
oh look at this crater in the plywood oh
it was the other half of the stylus that was still stuck in the machine it's
clear that gravity is not going to get us there how about our friend
H2O ah oh the plumbing is everywhere how
about some mood music wow we're losing
so much okay well it doesn't matter the
point is it's getting very wet with an ip65 water and dust resistance rating I
wouldn't expect it to survive being fully submerged but I also wasn't really
expecting it to just shrug off showers like this without skipping a bead oh
know
got to get the water out of the speaker so we can hear crab raay better this is
amazing I hate the resistive trackpad when I'm just using it normally but when
the thing's wet and the trackpad still works that's freaking awesome I know
what the problem is it's got beefed up water Elemental resistance well I think
we all know how to solve
that yeah that's more like it
wait oh no that's not even part of the mill standard we need to put it out
quick the mud get it in the
mud surely you guys knew this video was going to go off the rails at some point
right I did not think this one oh my God is it still
playing um did we get it oh my God the
trackpad even works right now are you seeing this oh we melted the keyboard a
little bit that may have been an error I think I know how to fix that if the
opposite of water is fire then the opposite of fire is also
water this will undo everything we just did
surely oh yeah I mean that's good for the plumbing right ah oh it's hot is hot
water closer to water or fire pristine
here you go buddy are the speakers dead
though this melted keyboard still
Works look at it I've got to go I have badminton training in 15 minutes we need
some more ideas oh wait I forgot we're not barbarians got to be on
to 3 in of
plywood boom stop come
on all right we lost a
battery stop you did not I may not have
time to solve this right now I've got to
go what the crap does this keyboard
still work I went right over the
keyboard stop it are you kidding me I got places to
be did I get
it
she's finally dead sort of I only
managed to kill the screen we'll figure that out tomorrow in the meantime I
really do need to go uh here
catch don't you hate it when that happens I completely misread the time
I'm not due there for an hour let's find out if this thing works
okay oh no no way I saw that screen flicker when I plugged in the display no
it still works
stop does that count it's still a functional computer dang it I have an
idea let's put that I was about to say Dropout
education to use that's what this hoodie that
sweatsuit is called the Dropout lttu and then I dropped the thing doesn't matter
the point is grab some goggles oh I got it well that was quick
wait
no that did
nothing oh do you want to get a closeup for mine yeah go for
it oh that one turns it off wait did we
get
it okay oh yeah she's dead oh she's quite
um Smiley now so there Keith
indestructible I think Not In fairness to him though it took a lot more effort
to destroy this thing than even the military standards test for and when we
asked our delre about any interesting stories that they might have around
their rugged line of laptops they shared these photos with us of a Dell Latitude
rugged extreme from a police cruiser that was shot with a rifle during a
high-speed Pursuit I wouldn't call it bulletproof but it's certainly bullet
resistant so if you're in the market for a laptop
that can withstand the elements is it worth looking at how it fared in the
military standards tests the answer is
yes but also only sort of see it's not
necessary for companies to use independent testing before they make
claims of military grade endurance but
many rugged device manufacturers not only do get their claims tested
independently they also often publish the final results and post videos of the
procedures and I mean why shouldn't they right if you're selling durability a
video of your laptop being pelted with sand or dropped by a robot ARM might
just lead to a sale or thousands of sales just make sure that if you're
shopping for something like this probably in a procurement Department you
are looking into the actual testing being done the takeaway then isn't that
rugged laptops are weaker than they appear clearly but rather that the
current standards of testing don't ensure a fair playing field for all of
the participants in this Niche but lucrative Market speaking of lucrative
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maybe check out the time hacksmith Industries came over and we cooled a PC
with fire