Twinhead Durabook D14RY

Once you start looking at semi-rugged notebooks, you typically have to start accepting some major tradeoffs, usually in the way of components, performance, and especially price. The Twinhead Durabook D14RY, however, demolishes that stereotype, offering a good array of features and respectable performance for a reasonable price of $2,099.
 
As its name implies, the Durabook D14RY is designed to be a survivor but has a subtle enough design for everyday use. In fact, the only hint of this system's ruggedness is a quartet of thin black rubber bumpers on each corner. Inside are a number of features designed to weather a gauntlet of knocks, drops, and droplets. An anti-shock mounting design protects the Durabook's LCD screen and hard drive, and a unique optical-drive tray lock keeps this sensitive component from accidentally opening during a severe shock, a very common calamity when a notebook is dropped.
 
The magnesium-alloy case suggests ruggedness without looking much different than many mainstream notebooks. Also, the keyboard and touchpad feel and look like standard notebook components yet are spill resistant. Twinhead tests the keyboard with 100ml of water--about three ounces--and claims it is also resistant to spills of juice, tea, and coffee.
 
The keyboard is well laid out and has a nice feel. Our only complaint is that the Delete key is hidden and off to the right. The power button and the wireless LAN On/Off switch are well marked and prominently placed, which is a noticeable improvement over previous Durabook designs. We also like the 14.1-inch display, which performed well even in direct sunlight.
 
Because the battery occupies the rear panel, all of the connectors are moved to the sides of this machine. They include all of the usual suspects, including three USB ports and even a serial port. The D14RY also features a Smart Card reader above the single PC Card slot, along with a 4-in-1 card reader.
 
Our test unit came with an impressive 2.33-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive. An integrated Intel 945GM chip handles the graphics, complemented by a variable amount of shared memory (8MB to 256MB). Wireless connectivity is limited to Intel's 802.11a/b/g radio; we wish the D14RY had a built-in wireless WAN option.
 
On our benchmark tests, this system did okay for a semi-rugged notebook, scoring 2,288 on PCMark05. We were happy to see that its 3DMark03 score of 1,083 is an improvement over the D14RA, but it's still quite a bit lower than the Dell Latitude ATG D620's score of 1,704. The D14RY lasted just shy of two hours on our DVD rundown test, which is decent but won't deliver the endurance a highly mobile worker needs. Wireless performance was good but not great: 8.7 Mbps of throughput from 50 feet.
 
We weren't crazy about the D14RY's cooling fan, which was quite loud at times. We also missed the handy volume-control knob that was near the speaker connector on the D14RA.
 
For security, Twinhead offers a $99 TPM 1.2 solution. Unfortunately, an onboard fingerprint reader isn't available. But our configuration also had a Smart Card slot for added security.
 
No doubt the best feature of the Twinhead Durabook D14RY is its $2,099 price tag, which includes a two-year warranty. The $3,145 Dell Latitude ATG D620 we tested came with a 2-GHz processor and 1GB of memory but a three-year warranty. What you get for that higher price is longer battery life (six hours), better graphics performance, and a higher-resolution display. In addition, Twinhead keeps limited tech-support hours, and only from Monday to Friday.
 
If you want more endurance and integrated mobile broadband, we recommend the Dell Latitude ATG D620 or Panasonic's lighter Toughbook CF-74. But if you're looking for a rough-and-tumble system with plenty of screen real estate that won't break the bank, the Durabook D14RY is a good bargain.

 

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