The new models feature 1080p screens that should be visible even in bright sunlight thanks to their 1,000 nits of brightness and hot swappable batteries for users who go long stretches away from the charger. They are rated for around 14 hours of battery per pack.
The Dell Latitude 7424 Rugged Extreme is the most hardy of the bunch. It can survive accidental drops of up to 1.8m and features three bays for SSD drives that can be removed while the machine is running or set up in a RAID array to ensure that no data will be lost in the event of hardware failure.
The Dell Latitude 5424 and 5420 Rugged notebooks are slightly less resilient and can survive drops of 0.9m. While they also lack the additional hard-drive bays of the more expensive model, they are thinner and lighter, coming in around 2.5kg in comparison to 3.5kg for the 7424.
All the models are capable of operating at temperatures ranging from -29°C to 63°C and are both dust and waterproof.
A Dell spokesperson explained that the inbuilt cooling system had been designed to maintain acceptable internal operating temperatures even in searing outdoor heat. Conversely, the heat produced by the laptop itself would keep the batteries warm enough to maintain operation in sub-zero climates.
The laptops are also designed to be impervious to salt fog, a weather event often faced at sea and something that has a highly corrosive effect on electronic devices.
These models are also the first featuring next-gen Cat16 4G/LTE for internet connectivity in remote areas. In particular, the models can support Band 14, a communications frequency reserved for the military and first responders to ensure that communications are always possible even on congested networks. Support for this band is uncommon in most communication devices, although a Dell spokesman explained that SIM cards for it are heavily restricted, so any commercial purchases of these laptops will most likely not be able to make use of this feature.
At a launch event in London, Dell was keen to demonstrate the device's more extreme use cases and brought along former soldier and jungle survival expert Steve Haeword.
"I've tested them in the desert and in the jungle," Haeword said. "The ultimate test is in the jungle because there's no electricity, the humidity is significant, especially when it rains, it's just horrific. It's like someone has turned a firehose on you and the ionisation sits over the top of the canopy so there's still that moisture there afterwards."
To charge the laptops, his team used triple-layer solar mats which are capable of absorbing both the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums as well as direct sunlight.
This meant they could still produce energy even when they were located underneath a thick forest canopy, a set-up that was sufficient to keep the devices running
"They weren't at peak charge, but they charged enough for what we wanted to do for 18 weeks," he said. "At night-time, the computers were on for morale management, we were watching Game of Thrones or Spartacus."
Haeword was particularly enamoured by the lower weight of the latest generation of Ruggeds, which are about 500g lighter on average than the previous models, and the comparatively svelte chassis of each new model.
He said that any reduction in weight was important when travelling in difficult terrain while carrying gear. Military deployments would also benefit, as the cost of transporting equipment to different zones around the world is very steep.
The MoD typically spends around £27,000 an hour on its military aircraft when they are airborne, he added. Any reduction in weight - especially when transporting equipment en masse - can achieve significant savings.
