FINALLY!!! A laptop that suits Linus's needs!

I work for an ISP and we use these in field service. They're really not bad. Best Laptop I've used so far (for applications outside the office)

Man...I deployed close to 2000 of these things working for LE. I have gotten four back that were shot and they survived. These things have LITERALLY saved lives with their durability.

That feeling when "The batteries can be swapped, and you can even tell how full they are" is a selling point. Except you owned a laptop in 2001 and it was totally normal at that time. People would look at you weird if you had a laptop that you *couldn't* replace the battery pack on. Because it's fundamentally stupid to not be able to easily replace the one thing that you know, with 1000% certainty, is going to be need to be replaced at some point.

Your shovel did not damage it, I've bought six of these for work this year and most of them are not square and level when you place them on a table. Not that you notice it on the field. Also regarding the nine antenna cable board, it's an antenna switcher. Three input connectors (channels), Wifi, LTE and GPS. Two outputs for each channel go to the internal antennas and the dock connector on the bottom. The laptop can then switch if it is using it's internal antennas, or external antennas on the dock. Can be used to bring the antennas outside if you dock the laptop in a bunker with no reception.

I like the fact it has hot-swappable batteries, that would be a cool feature on normal laptops as well Just keep an extra battery in your backpack and take it out in the middle of a meeting or a lecture or something

We use laptops similar to these on aircraft carriers because they’re pretty much indestructible, EMI resistant, fuel/oil/waterproof, and are field repairable. They’re totally worth it when you need dependability on mass scale.

I just love it that not that long ago Alex was very shy while hosting these videos and now he just runs in with a shovel and starts attacking the laptop without any introduction :D :D What a way to go! :D

My roommate had a similar laptop, and he loved to freak people out by cleaning it with the spray nozzle from the sink, while it was on.

The lack of swappable RAM is because it uses LPDDR4x, which has to be soldered and can't be socketed (this does allow for the higher than usual transfer rate).

One of my first jobs was hardware replacement for Dell laptops. The old rugged laptops were a nightmare to open up and put back together. A very specific screw sequence which if you missed one it wouldn't go back on properly

The 1600 peak brightness of the MacBook is only when watching HDR videos (and not all HDR videos, but Dolby Vision ones), and it's only for small sections of the screen (i.e area where the Sun is shining in a video). The sustained all-screen brightness for HDR is 1000 nits, and in SDR mode (normal use) it only goes up to 500 nits (like all previous MBPs since 2016). Though, there's an app called 'Vivid' that uses some hacks to get the 1000 nit mode working in normal mode (with sacrifices to color accuracy), so comparing that with this Dell laptop would be an interesting comparison.

Alex is definitely one of the best hosts at LMG. He personifies the Canadian spirit and energy level and he never takes things too serious, but enough that we still get to learn about the subject. Well done with that shovel, sir!

Laptop made for Linus. He can drop it as many times as he wants.

I do love a rugged laptop. Used to use a toughbook at a previous job as a maintenance tech. Was super handy, the whole place was run off PLC and having a laptop enabled us to run just about any peice of equipment for diag or testing.

My dad worked overseas for a while in extreme conditions and the only computer that worked without an issue at his site was his Toshiba. All the toughbook style computers had issues.

Wish more companies would build their own takes on rugged laptop tough books to increase competition and drive prices down

I’m a telecommunications Lineman and we use Toshiba Toughbooks. Sometimes we have to take them up to the line with us, and I’ve dropped mine , with the screen open, from 45 feet up and nothing happened to it.

OMG at 3:02 I thought they had put a scorpion.jpg on the left side of the screen in editing for some reason... I was so confused until I saw the trackpad had the same image and remembered that dbrand exists 🤣

What didn’t get mentioned was the importance of the SSD. The old Toughbooks’ Achilles’ Heel was the hard drive and mechanical shock. This generation looks like a huge improvement all around.

I just love stuff which is not built for consumers. You just see that that thing is NOT built for best profit/unit like consumer stuff, but for actually being REALLY good

I work for the county and our sheriffs office uses these and our public works department uses them , and imo they’re hands down some of the best mobile rugged devices on the market , the fact they can pretty much have a workspace anywhere in the field is huge for them , we have 200 of them 0 issues so far and some of the parts like the HD etc are super easy to swap out if they fail.

The way the unboxing starts is amazing. I was excited to see it opened.

I am an engineer in a military-focused company, and we use these in the field while field testing our equipment. That many IOs are actually standard in most military hardware. I always thought "rugged laptops" were primarily designed for us because they are very durable (the military has stupid requirements for sand, cold, water, heat, etc.), and they have lots of primarily old and "simple" IOs.

Alex's energy is so amazing. Shortcircuit videos with him are absolutely awesome.

Given Alex’s loyalty to Dell, it’s nice to see him try one that could *maybe* last a nuclear winter.

I have one of their rugged extreme 7424, it’s the second ultra rugged machines from dell I’ve had and they have both been awesome. My last one jumped from 20 feet several times with out issue, I have also used both in the rain for protracted periods of time without issue. I discovered my old one needed to be replaced when it got pooped on by birds and I sprayed it with foaming bleach and I found some cracks in the case as I was washing it off. That being said it went a year or two after that incident occurred.

Must admit I was waiting for Alex to shout 'TIME!' right as the unpacked laptop hit the desk

Having worked with "tough books" in the military I can say they were annoying to deal with... but they were designed to be sturdy. These are far smaller than the ones we had a decade ago.

Remember everyone, reload is faster than charging. -Dell, probably

I had a Latitude 5404 Rugged at my last job. It had an ethernet port with the same link lights you'd have on a desktop NIC, and (like this one) a native serial port. You can actually spec these things with dual NICs and dual Serial Ports if you want to (great if you're in the field and provisioning a lot of networking equipment). I miss how practical that thing was, but now that I have back problems I would definitely not miss that thing's weight (I'm currently rocking a 7th Gen X1 Carbon for my work laptop, and I'll probably be issued another X1 Carbon once the life cycle's up on this one)

One thing I love about our workshop laptop is the fact that's always covered in dust and some how hasn't over heated

It's so rugged, Linus can use it as his work computer.

10:42 I have the 5424 rugged, didn't work after a small bump on the bottom, the ram module is designed to make contact with the bottom shell on that model. So 1 misplaced hit and your ram stick will die. Took out the dead stick and then the laptop works. Looks like the ram has been moved on this model.

I have to say, I use the previous model at work as a technician for an ISP. Ever since we updated to Windows 11 the touchscreen no longer works with gloves on or even the stylus acts up sometimes.

0:28 BRUV THAT'S $90 FOR A HOODIE

In the past 6 years my dad has had a new laptop every year because he always "somehow" manages to completely destroy each one. The man just doesn't take care of his stuff (e.i. throws his laptop around everywhere, pulls the laptop by the charging cable, and just somehow manages to destroy the chassis). In the past 2 years we've gotten him thinkpads because after some research I found that they were said to be some of the sturdier laptops out there, yet he still managed to break one each year. Currently he doesn't have a laptop, and since the day I found out about these rugged laptops I have genuinely pondered whether we should just bite the bullet and get him one and see if the man can somehow break this laptop.

Bruh I thought they were censoring the laptop with a random picture of a scorpion. What the hell lmao

Those laptops are really good. I used them as a PLC programmer working at industrial job sites, you'd be amazed how often I still need a physical serial port and I'm glad these laptops include them!

I've been using one of these since 2017, they are awesome for field work!

I can hit anything with a shovel, that doesn’t make this laptop special. It’s just that not everything survives when I do. This laptop looks useful as this is a problem I’ve been having recently

I once had a Compaq laptop around 1993 that was fitted into a lightweight flight case, it was a rugged model to start with, it had these latch type fittings that released the monitor and keyboard from the flight case, I think it was a military model, I used it to run MIDI sequencing at my bands gigs, it was built like a tank!

Should definitely try running water through that sealed cooling compartment to see how it affects performance. It’d also be cool to see if performance changes at all at the extreme ranges of its temp rating

this thing is a beast. I used to work for dell and I'd have to repair these when anything went awry. Loads of water proofing and heavy construction, but very good performance. OH the ram was under the keyboard on the older units. :) Easy access too.

This intro had a "Jays iFix it" ad vibe to it, I can totally see Alex and Jay doing an ad together: DELL RUGGED!!! So rugged you can smash it with an SHOVEL!!! And if you break something, you can fix it with IFIXIT!!! Smashed yourself with the shovel?? You cant fix that with IFIXIT!!!

Im a dell enginner, the most awesome thing about dell rugged is that if LCD gets cracked the warranty will be valid and cover the damage

Looks like it's definitely useful for military applications, police and rescue work, as well as in any extreme places (think north pole and middle of the ocean boat rigs).

I had an older one of these at my last job for machine/plc troubleshooting, it worked great.

"It's touchscreen, I just noticed that." Didn't you pull a stylus out of the side of it earlier? I would have taken that as a clue...

As a former ThinkPad user I can say: No more laptops without the middle-mouse-key as an actual key. SO useful.

Man I love the IO on this thing. I was given a thin lenovo for my network engineer job, where I need to configure network devices in a lab or in the field. That thing has like 2 USB-A ports and one C port. They really expect me to haul a dock with me to connect to network devices. The RS-232 port is such a good addition for the intended work this is designed for. Lots of old machinery is operated over it, so having that and a separate USB and ethernet ports is so nice.

Absolutely love when Alex hosts videos, usually super chaotic.

A little correction, the degree operating in Celsius or Fahrenheit is wrong in the negative... It makes sense that it would be negative 21 f but not what is mentioned as c, which is not the same as a Fahrenheit stated. So someone got it wrong, with the range of degrees because neither the Fahrenheit negative nor the Fahrenheit positive corresponds to the negative or positive in c

The none user swappable ram may be a security measure to prevent physical breaches, although I'm no Dell technician.

I love the Xsplit sponsor while OBS is on the desktop for the laptops.

I was a contractor in a previous job and they gave us these to work with. Was nice carrying it around like a top secret briefcase.

Far more affordable than the GETACs that we've used for 10 years. I like the construction of these much better as well

That first 20 seconds of the made my day

For the new lab, you should build a big tumbler type machine to test rugged electronics. Maybe even test some non rugged devices.

These are awesome laptops, the testing and capability of these laptops is awesome. The ram is field upgradable and replaceable just on the other side of the MLB. It’s also still has a pcmcia slot still, dual serial, dual Ethernet. Best part is that the serial drivers support rs-422, and the nics support non Ethernet with the stock drivers like AFDX. This makes these units great for their intended market which is harsh environments where users need to work on specialized equipment like avionics, comms, industrial IOT. The explosive atmosphere certification makes it one of a very very select models that meet the needs for those same markets. They aren’t cheap but the market is small and the requirements to be met are extremely challenging when dell will sell less than 50k of these units during the lifecycle of the unit.

It's weird to see you guys cover a computer I am currently evaluating for my job lol

Would appreciate a low temperature test. Stick it inside an industrial freezer and see if it still works. Especially if the battery is significantly impacted.

The trackpad working with gloves is a really good feature that very few laptops ive used have if you live in a cold area having to pull your gloves off sucks and the same applies if you do any mechanical or outdoor work and need to look things up often that would be pretty nice

11:01 This thing is an automated antenna switch. My gaming notebook has a similar one and it is there to enhance your WiFi range. You have antennas in the notebooks display and sometimes also in its base. The logic can switch between them to give you a better signal strength. Also your model has external antenna connectors on the bottom and the logic probably switches to them when the notebook is put in the dock and it can deliver a better signal. That small antenna board has three little ICs and three antennas per IC. One for the input (gray, black and thick red how it looks) and two as an output (external or internal). And your model doesn't have LTE capabilities. It would have a modem in the top left m.2 slot where the two antennas are. And I wonder where the WiFi module sits. Maybe underneath the antennas.

Truly another class of laptops! I've used one of their older models, and the screen was so bright I started wearing sunglasses when using it indoors (we had Linux installed, and the brightness slider was difficult to get to), but you could easily see it even in broad daylight. We use a similar model from Panasonic for cattle farming, and the laptops commonly get covered in manure during operations. They keep working, and you can just wipe the screen off with a wet cloth and keep going. In so many industrial situations, the color accuracy or sound quality doesn't really matter, as long as you can see and hear in the bright sun or near some noisy machinery, and it doesn't quit as soon as it gets caught in a rainstorm or dropped in a puddle. Also, in that sort of environment, the $4K+ price tag is well worth it when you consider the amount of time and money that would be involved in repairing or replacing something less expensive.

I’m a simple man. I see a ShortCircuit with Alex or Riley and I click. The best hosts with the energy and humor I come here for (and obviously the tech).

Love that you tried to use it with a glove, do wish you had tried to interact with the I/O with them on, though! Plugging stuff in with gloves on I see as likely to be one of the most likely yet challenging uses for the laptop if you're *actually* trying to use it 'in the field'

I've always thought these were such cool devices. I honestly havnt heard of one since like 2010 so this was a neat surprise!

Can LTT please do a video about smart card readers and how secure an OS unlock method like that actually is? I think it'd be cool.

ALEX, Please make a video where you and Linus make a DIY sketchy version of a rugged laptop.

I love how much fun Alex has with these rugged Dells.

I had one of these fall off of a roof onto a rock driveway. Still worked!

I've always had an interest in rugged laptops

You can also use this as a blunt force weapon and ballistic shield if you want.

In my former job, I installed and maintained a fleet of Dell Rugged laptops for a major cell carrier (think magenta). The only one I saw die was one where the user was careless and ran into an electric fence while using one and it got electric shock damage. It was common to see dents and cracks in these, but they would still be usable. When I was a traveling IT guy, I would have killed for a rugged laptop, so I wouldn't have to be as careful about dropping the laptop.

I use one of these guys at my work for the past few year, its an older version of what you got there. Its a tank. The only things that have broke is some of the IO ports due to heavy use get loose and the screen latch is broken so it will just open if you throw it. Other wise it works!

I am a huge fan of Dell Latitude notebooks, mostly because they're upgradable and built like tanks, but such notebooks might look very plain are not cheap. The XFR is definitely no exception. By the way 11th gen seems very recent. Unlike consumer laptops Latitude is a bussiness laptop meaning usually also includes vPro processors. These processors usually are also tested and binned like the Xeon, so in theory vPro enabled cpus are a tad bit superior to that of the "normal" CPUs. Especially in the XFR. Like a typical workstation before Dell releases such a product they test it to operate under a variety of situations and with certain software. All this stuff takes a lot of time. So not only typically are they late getting the CPUs because of binning, but then the design and testing. You can actually build up one of these XFR laptops to run software packages right from Dell. Dell will guarantee it, similar to their Linux certifications. That too takes time The XPS plus just got Ubuntu 22.04 certified. Long story short even if you could order the latest and greatest in CPUs, it would likely take some time to get it. bussiness notebooks usually lag behind consumer notebooks for that reason. Desktops too of course. This is why the XPS is typically released before the precision 5000 series. Practically the same laptop visually, a different market and thus details internally.

Thats the type of laptop you get when you call an predator missile on rust

I just bought a similar laptop for work, since we do research on lakes. So far it has lived up to its IP65 rating pretty well, and it feels like you are carrying around a small handheld tank

I’ve used an older one of these on a construction job in more or less a desert (eastern Arizona lol). As such I just wanna say that they included the pen for when u wanna use the touchscreen with gloves it’s so much better of an experience that way. U can also get pretty fast at typing on an actual keyboard with a stylus and gloves with enough practice tho u don’t need to so much on this model it looks like

The ram being soldered on is acceptable as it's done to eliminate "oh no i dropped it and the ram came loose in the slot"

That WebCam is better than Apple‘s!😂🤣🖥

In the military we use the Dell 5414 they are amazing for field use. And very good in dusty conditions. Touch screen is handy for plotting map overlays. Only downside is you need external monitors.

i work in the IT department for an oilfield company. We send these out on offshore rigs all the time. they take an insane beating! only complaints ive ever recieved is that they get slow after a few years. as would any laptop.

Guys, the Macbook screen only does 1000nits sustained (1600peak) in HDR mode. Microsoft Teams doesn't really qualify as HDR. It's 500nits in SDR mode.

Comparing the "toughbook" too a regular laptop is like comparing a van to a car!

sold this kind of notebook many times in the past.. people that travel a lot and know its going to be dropped and the like, love this kind of thing. client even ran it over one time.. still worked.. after 3 years of total abuse, some of the I/O panels fell off.. but i mean abused it. These are meant for going to mines, construction, security and the like.. very worth it. Panasonic Tough book is the ones I sold before. This looks like a good contender for that market.

My stepdad was at a convention back in 2003-ish when they were doing a presentation for these laptops. Apparently the guy presenting it threw it on the ground then started jumping up and down on it, then gave the next portion of his presentation while standing on it. Finished by opening it and showing it was still chilling in Windows XP and working fine. The one from the presentation had a swivel screen that you could flip around like some 2-in-1's. A thought for younger viewers, this predated the proliferation of SSDs. There was a disk drive in that bad boy with some real fancy tech to keep it from getting messed up by flipping it around. I think they retailed for around 3k - 3.5k iirc but it's been 20 years so I don't remember too well.

Queue joke about Linus dropping stuff and needing this laptop

I have to use a capacitive touchscreen at an outdoor job. They'll usually only work with gloves that specifically say they're compatible, and even then it's always ridiculously specific about HOW you touch the screen when deciding whether it'll work or not. Probably not a limitation of the Dell in this case, just a limitation of the technology.

A large selling point on those is vibration resistance. Many laptops couldn’t be strapped to a mount in a motor vehicle without issues from the vibrations. Also the hot and cold tolerance is supposed to be able to be left inside a car in almost any weather.

The clicks in the locks is satisfying

Technically you can hit any laptop with a shovel.

Holy shit the military industrial complex includes Dell

My shop uses these in an industrial setting for plc troubleshooting and programming. They never get shut off and they sit in a 40c shop floor all summer long. Yes they get hot to the point you could burn yourself, but they never broke for that reason. I've seen them with broke keys, broken charging ports and one with a ripped off screen but operator error is mostly to blame. They get used 24/7 by not so gentle mechanics getting wheeled around on a table station to station getting banged around and occasionally falling off the table. There more tuff then a 5.9 and cost more then you think they would, but in the right applications there perfect.

I've been a paramedic for 12 years and we've used Dell toughbook products the entire time. When I started they were barely usable garbage, now they're a genuine pleasure.

This can also be used as a weapon when anyone tries to mug you.

Finally, a Linus-proof laptop.

Speaking about webcams, my company is starting to deploy Latitude 7430's and the 1080p webcam is actually extremely impressive for a laptop webcam. Probably the best webcam I've ever used.

I used this computer (2018 version but looks the same) when workong in the oilfield as a federal inspector and I legitimately left it out in the rain with the lid open on the hood of an F150 in front of a drilling rig for hours sitting in direct sunlight and it never missed a beat!