QOTD: How Should We Test Rugged Laptops?

[antemon]

That's easy.
Will it blend? Well, assuming you can find a big enough blender...

 

[orionantares]

If you're testing true rugged laptops then you'll need to include a truck test. Back over it with a half-ton or more pick-up truck.

 

[hunter315]

I would do a moderate height drop, a cup of coffee or juice poured on it to check water resitance, and maybe put it in a sandblasting chamber on low to see how well it would stand up to a sandy/dusty environment, should give it a pretty good pounding to simulate bad daily usage fairly quickly

 

[joytech22]

Drop it onto the road and run it over (happened to me), pretend your in a construction site, drop the laptop and drop a brick from a height of 5 meters.

Drop the laptop onto a smooth, thick and hard concrete surface, it should bounce not break.

Drop it into a pool

Take it to a poor side of town, and watch the homeless fight over it, recover. (Sorry)

 

[dEAne]

The most practical to test a rugged notebooks or laptops is to get give it to kids, and the other option is give it to someone who keeps breaking things.

 

[cardsharp]

Run a stress test while in a controlled environment (40C with 80+ humidity). Every time my laptop's been to a tropical country something stops working.

MrGrinch also brought up a good point, my EMS agency has noticed that the toughbook wireless antenna is located in one of the grips on the screen and breaks off relatively easily. Consider clamping one end of it to simulate holding it horizontally and dropping a weight on the center of the chassis.

 

[Guest]

Just give it to your 7 year old for a week, if it survives that, it will be the most rugged laptop in the world.

 

[Guest]

put in concrete mixer with a shovel of gravel and sand, while running for an hour then pour in enough water to fully wet the mixture. run benchmarks on whatever is left over. drive over it in a standard size car.

 

[nebun]

drop them off an helicopter or a jet aircraft. that's how most of the toughtbooks are handled in the military. sometimes they get dropped (accidents)from at least 10 or more feet and they still work like nothing happened.

 

[okibrian]

Drop test WHILE THE LAPTOP IS ON AND ACCESSING DATA. Too many times you guys drop test things, but it is under the best case. When devices fall in the real world they are powered on and accessing data, so do a real world test.

 

[Guest]

Stick it in a backpack full of books and vibrate and shake the whole thing for several hours. A semester of similar treatment was enough to cause half the screws in my dell to fall out and a case clip to crack

 

[lasaldude]

Thats a real easy answer. Give it to a 4 year old or younger. Trust me on that one!

 

[fusion_gtx]

Lots of good ideas, I'd try a couple more though.

Drop the laptop down some stairs as if it had slipped out of your hands.
From about table height, drop it onto it's LCD screen.

 

[Regulas]

[citation][nom]dameon51[/nom]install os x on it[/citation]
Troll

 

[back_by_demand]

Give it to a kid prescribed with Ritilin, then slowly withdraw his meds

 

[vectorm12]

a "pressure" test would above all be interesting, stuff gets stacked on top of the laptop with lid closed. Someone accidentally puts a little weight on the stack without realizing there's a laptop under all the other stuff. If the screen/case survives then it I'd classify it as "rugged" in my world.

 

[drip50291]

Drop it on its corners. put it in an oven for a certain amount of time...running, freezer same thing, longer duration. The ending test has to be a flat slam from chest height. Shoot objects at the screen, enough that can have considerable impact. Somewhere between the impact of a nail gun and a staple gun. O and shake it when the hard drives are running.

 

[nebun]

[citation][nom]lasaldude[/nom]Thats a real easy answer. Give it to a 4 year old or younger. Trust me on that one![/citation]

ok i have done this with my 17 inch macbook pro, and guess what, it still works and looks like new. my daughter is almost 2, lol.

 

[arunloveshacking]

1.Urinate in the keyboard
2. Clean the screen with Phenyl or any similar toilet cleaning agent
3. Use as a bat for a. Cricket, b. Tennis
4. Use instead of a pillow
5. play throw - catch game with ur frnd using laptop as throw thing
6.Stamp twice a day

Ultimate test:

Think of ur enemy and give a kick to the laptop. If it survives, it is best in its class

 

[TwoDigital]

Apparently, throwing them off the Foxconn building is pretty effective. 🙁

 

[fozzie76]

1) Drop test from X distance
2) Spill test of X amount of fluid
3) Heat and/or cool the laptop to X degrees Celsius to simulate being left in a hot/cold car.

 

[doron]

Every year I get a call for some reserve duty, and didn't bring any laptop because I didn't think it was up for the task. I would actually be glad if you tested some laptops in the following situations:

1. Under heavy weight and pressure - sometimes there's no other choice but to put the laptop inside a bag which is then stocked on a pile of bags inside a truck.

2. In muddy / sandy conditions - Be it winter, summer, spring or fall, you can always count on your trustworthy sand / mud to get inside every possible hole no matter what!

3. Humid / Wet conditions - When raining and some rain enters through hatch in an APC or w/e or when very warm and there's lots of humidity (Sweaty hands / clothes and stuff).

Also I'll be glad if you'd check what would happen in case the laptop accidentally falls inside mud / puddle or get stepped on (people in the army have a mod-switch to bunch-of-stupid-apes)

Thanks a lot =]

 

[hardwarekid9756]

Well, IMO there are 3 things a rugged notebook should withstand:
Dirty/Dust infiltrations
"Hard use" and
Water damage

So, IMO, the best way to test it:
Personally I think the three best ways to test it would be to
A. Take it out on a light rainy day and try and identify rocks, leaves and stuff in your back yard, as if you were a scientist in the field.
B. Take it on a Paintball match, using the maps to navigate the battle field. have it purposely shot, too ^.^
C. Take it in a Rallycar/Offroader, and set it on the dash to be bumped around and handled poorly, see if anything breaks/crashes

the last one is give it to an infant...if it's gonna break, that baby is gonna find out how lol

 

[CPfreak]

spill water on it, give it to a 3 year old kid, put it in sandbox, drop it 5 times from between 1 meter high and 2 meter (3 and 6.5 feet), "inadvertently" kick it's screen while walking, put it in the freezer at -20Celcius, then give it to me and i'll sell it for you if i may keep 50%.

 

[mrbosco]

Agree with 'aneasytarget' above - dirt, vibration, drop, battery and wifi testing all important, as is screen visibility in bright sunlight. Work in IT for an NGO and we run into serious trouble with laptop reliablility in the field. Specific test I'd be interested in would be resiliance to dirt - example, does pressing a button or key while there is sand or dirt present cause the dirt to fall in under the button mechanism and stop it functioning - recurring problem for me - laptops come back from the field with 'broken keyboard' or 'broken touchpad buttons' as the problem description - 9 times out of 10 problem is due to dirt under the buttons. Quick test might be to pour fine sand on the keyboard and touchpad, turn it upside down and shake it off, then flip back over and use the keys to see if any sand has become trapped causing keys to malfunction. Seconday test would be whether the keyboard can be easily dissssembled to solve the problem if it occurs - example the keys on many laptop keyboards can be safely popped off to clean underneath them, wheras trying that on other models may cause damage.

I also see laptops overheating due to dust being sucked into the heatsink and collecting there - some kind of 'cooling with dusty air' test would be useful, as would verifying that the air intake isn't on the underside of the laptop (I've heard of laptops literally placed down on the dirt and switched on causing the laptop to suck up dirt like a vacuum cleaner). Would be extremely interested to see some cheap but durable laptops tested alongisde the rugged models - as a non-profit organisation we typically don't pay for 'ruggedized' models when we can generally buy two cheap models for the same money - would be very interested in a recomendation for the most rugged laptop model available in the 'value' segment.