Getac B300
Verdict
The Chuck Norris of the laptop world, Getac's Bond-style B300 is built to withstand the harshest of environments. It'll bankrupt you in the process, mind.
Review Date: 21 May 2008
Price when reviewed: (£3,762 inc VAT)
Overall Rating

With that low-voltage processor and a 7,800mAh battery safely secured in its own dust-sealed compartment, the Getac lasted over seven hours away from the mains. Upping the ante and putting it under the strain of our heavy usage test only reduced that to three and a half hours. Replace the optical drive with the optional extra battery, and even the most demanding of users should find that the B300's stamina is ample.
Even the keyboard and trackpad are impressive elements in their own right. The half-height enter key gets a thumbs down, but the positive feeling keys go a long way towards making up for it. The dainty trackpad is free from any complaints though, and the waterproof rubberised buttons feel good under the thumb.
When it comes to strength, stamina and versatility, the B300 delivers in spades, but it's not perfect. The 13.3in touchscreen (the touch functions being yet another of the myriad optional extras) is limited to a rather dated native resolution of 1,024 x 768 pixels. Given the B300's potential applications, legibility is probably a higher priority than a roomy desktop, but if it's a truly do-it-all, go-anywhere laptop you're after, some will doubtless find the resolution a touch limiting.
We're a little unsure as to how useful the touchscreen really is, too. It does respond to the very firm prod of a fingertip, but we had to resort to the supplied stylus or the tip of a fingernail to get reliable results. It's a far cry from the tactile, responsive charms of Dell's Latitude XT.
But the beauty of the B300 is its very ability to be tailored to a particular task. All the optional extras come at a cost over and above that of the hefty basic price, above, but if you need GPS, HSDPA, secondary batteries and hard drives, vehicular docking stations and the like, the B300 can oblige.
Let's face it, very few people actually need a fully rugged laptop, and the B300's cost is daunting enough to send the average consumer running for the hills. But in environments where rough treatment, dust, damp and extreme temperature would leave other laptops needing a trip to the repair shop, or the scrapyard, the B300 is a revelation.
Author: Sasha Muller
advertisement
- Tweetlevel reveals most influential Twitterers
- Apple "refuses to repair smokers' Macs"
- Spotify arrives on Symbian
- Chrome OS and Android to "converge over time"
- Microsoft to pay News Corp to stay off Google
- Christmas sales surge knocks out eBay search
- Windows 8 set for 2012 release
- Q&A: Why Conficker was a victim of its own success
- App developers losing faith in Android
- Biz Stone: Murdoch's Google veto will "fail fast"
- ATI Radeon HD 5970: 42% more expensive in the UK
- Office 2010 Beta – 32-bit or 64-bit – The Choice is Clear
- Why Britain's watchdogs have fewer teeth than goldfish
- Tabbed documents: how to make Office 2010 great
- Outlook 2010 People Pane – does it spell death to Xobni
- Microsoft Outlook 2010 screenshots
- Co-Authoring in Word 2010 and SharePoint Foundation 2010
- Microsoft Outlook 2010 screenshots: Backstage view
- Flash 10.1: Developing for Desktop and Device
- Microsoft Office 2010 screenshots: Recover unsaved items
- The sci-fi legends who shaped today's tech
- Conficker's first birthday: how a year of havoc unfolded
- When will you get superfast broadband?
- The Crapware Con
- The 10 greatest tech U-turns
- Windows 7: everything you need to know
- PC 2010 and beyond
- The High Street Rip Off
- How to avoid the high-street rip-offs
- Do online protests really work?
- Getting to grips with Microsoft's IT Health Environment Scanner
- Virtualise your servers
- The changing face of travel gadgets
- Build your own distributed file system
- The bulletproof Dell that costs an arm and a leg
- Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview: Q&A
- Lawnmowers, the TyTN II and one odd insurance request
- There'll never be a bulletproof OS
- How far can we trust apps?
- Five nice touches in Outlook 2010
advertisement
Printed from www.pcpro.co.uk





