rugged

Otterbox is known for its ultraprotective iPhone cases. Now, M-Edge, which specializes in Kindle cases, is doing the same for the Kindle, with an announcement that its first waterproof Kindle is now shipping.

The company says the Guardian is made of molded plastic and protects your Kindle in all water environments up to 1 meter deep, whether you're in the pool, ocean, or just soaking in the tub. Your e-reader is totally sealed in the case, but you can still access all the buttons through "flexible sealed button cutouts." Even better, the case turns your Kindle into … Read more

If you're in the military or working in rough field conditions and need a computer upgrade, you're in luck: Panasonic has just announced the upgraded Toughbook 31, a new successor to its most-rugged Toughbook line.

With a weight and thickness that would be unappealing to anyone but those who need serious environmental armor, the Toughbook 31 comes with either an Intel Core i3 or i5 processor, optional ATI HD 5630 graphics, and up to a claimed 11 hours of battery life.

A 13.3-inch LED-backlit touch-screen display has CircuLumin technology that Panasonic says will enable viewing of the … Read more

In case you hadn't already read the leaks, HP's updated its 17-inch EliteBook mobile workstation with Intel Core i5 and i7 processors; three 1GB graphics card options; support for up to 16GB of 1,333MHz DDR3 memory; an option for a 256GB SSD; and mobile broadband with GPS for asset tracking, mapping, or navigation. Returning is the 17-inch LED-backlit WUXGA+ antiglare display with HP DreamColor technology for professional color reproduction.

The component offerings should allow for some serious desktop-like performance while still being mobile. The workstation measures 1.4 inches high by 15.6 inches wide by 11.… Read more

Note: If you own an iPhone 4 or 4S for, please go to Top 20 tough cases for iPhone 4 and 4S. This article features iPhone 3GS cases.

How you choose to protect--or not protect--your iPhone is a matter of personal choice. Sure, plenty of people like to leave their iPhone naked, reasoning that any protective cover diminishes its sleekness. But the majority of iPhone owners realize it's probably a good idea to give your precious device some degree of armor, particularly if you don't like the idea of seeing your iPhone's lovely finish dinged and scratched … Read more

There are a lot of rugged point-and-shoot digital camera options this year. But while most manufacturers are new to the market, Pentax is on its 11th generation with the Optio W90. The 12-megapixel camera is waterproof down to 20 feet, shockproof to 4 feet, and freezeproof to 14 degrees Fahrenheit.

Built from reinforced polycarbonate plastic, the W90 has a 5x f3.5-5.5 28-140mm-equivalent lens in front and a 2.7-inch display on back. If you look closely at the lens surround, you can see there are three LEDs to help brighten your scenes. They're also designed to work … Read more

Where once there were only a couple rugged/waterproof camera options, there are now several available; just about every major manufacturer has one. From the looks of these two from Samsung, it's still on the fence about whether it needs to compete in this area.

Pictured above on the left is the AQ100, a 12-megapixel ultracompact that's waterproof down to 10 feet for an unspecified amount of time (my guess is 30 minutes). It has an internal 5x zoom lens, a 2.7-inch LCD, digital image stabilization, and can record video at resolutions up to 720p at 30fps. … Read more

Hey, look, it's a rugged ultracompact camera from Sony (in case you hadn't already read about it). The Cyber-shot DSC-TX5 is basically a refreshed version of the TX1 made to be waterproof down to 10 feet for up to an hour, survive drops of about 5 feet, and keep shooting in temps as low as 14 degrees Fahrenheit. Plus, the waterproofing makes it dustproof.

Like I said, it does all the same stuff as the TX1 including those Sweep Panorama shots (it's Intelligent now for improved stitching and detection of faces and subject motion) and 720p video, … Read more

LaCie announced Thursday the Rugged eSATA external hard drive. Though external hard drives with an eSATA connection are not new, this appears to be the first drive that comes with a Power eSATA interface. This means its eSATA cable is also capable of powering the device, making the drive more portable.

The Power eSATA interface, also known as a USB-eSATA combo interface, combines the high transfer speeds of the eSATA standard with the USB standard's capability to draw juice from the computer.

The USB-eSATA combo interface has a slightly different connector than the standard eSATA and, unfortunately, is only … Read more

To show that it's still a leader in the rugged compact camera market, Olympus on Tuesday announced two Tough series models. Available in February, the $399.99 Stylus Tough-8010 is shockproof to drops of 6.6 feet and waterproof to depths of 33 feet, while the $299.99 Stylus Tough-6020 is shockproof to drops of 5 feet and waterproof to depths of 16 feet. Also, both cameras are freezeproof to temperatures as low as 14 degrees Fahrenheit.

Olympus does well with the rugged part of these cameras, but their feature sets were never very interesting. This time out, though, … Read more