This is one tough tablet meant to go places the iPad and its tablet ilk could only dream of. With its small, 7-inch screen and big price at $2,377, the Armor X7 isn't for the general consumer. It's MIL-STD-810G and IP65 certified, meaning it's built for those professionals who work under harsh conditions. The new ARMOR X7 is a compact tablet designed specifically for mission critical tasks that require a combination of connectivity, handheld mobility, ease of use, and enough ruggedness and durability to support all weather operations.
The Armor X7 is built like a tank. Though it features a small 7-inch display, it weighs a hefty 3.4 pounds with two high-capacity batteries (product literature claims it weighs 2.85 pounds with two standard batteries). It measures 8.9 inches wide by 5.9 inches high and 1.4 inches thick at its thinnest point – the middle of the bottom edge. It measure 1.8 inches thick along its top edge, and roughly 2.5 inches thick on either side where the tablet widens to accommodate the twin batteries.
The chassis is made from a tough, slightly textured plastic. The two batteries attach to either side of the unit. The batteries are covered with a thick rubber, which matches up with the rubber bumpers on the four front corners of the tablet itself. The rubber-coated batteries form excellent handles as well as a level of protection against drops where the Armor X7 might land on its top, bottom, back, or side. The front bumpers on the tablet are raised so that in the event you drop the tablet face down, the screen is protected.
The plastic chassis feels very firm. The only areas where it flexes are the two panels on the back to which each battery connects. Between the batteries on the back panel is a large heatsink. (A plastic grate covers the heatsink, preventing contact with your skin.) There are no moving parts in the Armor X7, including cooling fans, so the heatsink is employed to dissipate heat. It's a closed system, with no air vents that might attract dust and dirt. The only spots where debris might collect are along the bottom where the mini-USB 2.0 port, the power connector, and a docking connector reside. Above the heatsink is a spot to clip the tethered mini-pen when not in use. A 2-megapixel Webcam sits just below the pen on the upper-right corner, and the QuickMark barcode-scanning app is included.
Custom software is needed to take full advantage of the Armor X7. It features the 32-bit version of Windows 7 Ultimate, but navigating Windows is a chore. The screen measures only 7 inches diagonally and features a 1024 x 600 resolution. Squeezing that many pixels into such a small screen makes text difficult to read and icons and other objects difficult to tap. At the end of the row of the status LEDs is an ambient light sensor, which can change the brightness of the display accordingly. Via an Armor utilities application, you can also select from among five preset modes: Dark, Office, Dusk, Daylight, and Sunlight. The screen gets impressively bright under the Sunlight mode, and sure enough, the display remained very legible in direct sun.
The tethered stylus has a long enough leash for comfortable tapping and typing, but the display's protective layers made it feel less than accurate. Many times, the onscreen cursor would be slightly off from where I felt the tip of the pen was, resulting in furious tapping until I was able to hit my target. I had trouble, for instance, tapping on small objects such as the red X to close windows. I also found that I had to be very deliberate when tapping; quick taps went undetected most of the time.
The only keyboard is an onscreen keyboard, which is accessible by tapping the edge poking out from left side of the screen or the small keyboard icon that appears when you tap a text field such as a URL bar or search box. Again, given the size of the screen and the onscreen keyboard, typing is somewhat of a laborious process. The pen has a programmable button on its side near where your thumb rest that performs a right-click by default, but I found simply tapping and holding was the easier method for right-clicking.
DRS Technologies outfits the Armor X7 with the 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450, a single-core, energy-efficient processor commonly found in netbooks. Rounding out the core specs are 2GB of DDR2 memory, integrated Intel GMA 3150 graphics, and a 40GB solid-state drive. Windows felt peppy, though it's hard to do a great deal of multi-tasking given the small screen. I occasionally found myself waiting for search results to get returned, but the far larger productivity hit overall was working with such a small touch display.
The Armor X7 features two batteries, and it smartly uses up most of the resources of one before moving onto the next. And the batteries are identical, so you can carry additional batteries and hot-swap them in as a battery dies. On our review unit, the first battery drained down to 10% before the tablet switched to the other. Under regular but not constant use, and using a balanced power plan, the first battery lasted nearly four hours, which means you'll get roughly a workday's worth of running time with the tablet. Carry a third battery, and you'll definitely make it through days where you aren't near a power outlet.
DRS Technologies backs the Armor X7 with a three-year parts-and-labor warranty, which like its rugged chassis, goes beyond what you would get with a consumer tablet. For professionals who job takes them to dangerous , diverse, or unusual computing locations, the Armor X7 is the rugged little tablet that could. Just make sure that your company's software is functional on its small, 7-inch touchscreen.
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