Why Are Rugged Tablets Heavier Than Consumer Tablet PCs?

By Steve Kunert, Director of Engineering, MobileDemand

There is that “Oh, !*?#” exclamation when a consumer tablet is dropped and shrapnel flies everywhere. Workers with rugged tablets accidently drop their tablets and simply pick them up and keep on working.

The thing most people unfamiliar with rugged tablet PC systems say when they first hold one is, “Wow! That’s heavy. Why?” The answer is pretty straightforward. The rugged tablets are designed and built to survive every day, all day, intensive use. Rugged tablets such as MobileDemand’s xTablet T1200, with an i5 processor and a 10.4” screen are full Windows 7 or Windows 8 capable devices.

Let’s start with the obviously most fragile elements of either a non-rugged consumer tablet or a commercial rugged tablet which are the touch panel and LCD display. The consumer device uses glass layers in the touch and LCD that are as thin as possible to be light weight and enable a thin sleek design for the device. The rugged tablet uses thicker glass layers to be stronger and better resist breakage from impacts and drops. The “down” side is more weight and thickness in the design.

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