The difference between a plain vanilla consumer design and rugged machinery is already evident in the pictures below. While most of today's consumer tablets can't even be opened anymore, the xTablet T1180 has no fewer than four externally accessible openings that allow customization with various modules and components. The battery, too, can easily be replaced. And there's a snap-mount anchor for quick insertion and removal into mounting systems.

In terms of construction, the xTablet T1180 consists of a polycarbonate plastic housing with an internal magnesium chassis that's screwed onto the front part of the housing. Mounted on the chassis are the LCD on one side and motherboard, components and modules on the other. The front part of the housing is implemented as a shallow open box. The flat rear part is covered in many areas for reinforcement.

Should the need arise to open up the tablet, remove the four bumper assemblies, undo some 16 small Philips screws and separate the halves. With the exception of the small 0.6 watt-hour hot-swap battery that plugs into the motherboard, there are no cables or ribbons between the two halves. Below you can see what the xTablet T1180 looks like inside:

Sealing between the two parts of the housing is of a tongue-and-groove design, with a hard plastic lip on the front part of the housing pressing against a replaceable o-ring seal sitting inside a groove around the perimeter of the backplate.

The big 68 watt-hour rechargeable Li-Ion battery of the T1180 snaps into its compartment, but doesn't fit flush like the 40 watt-hour pack that was standard on prior versions of the platform (and is still used in the Android-base A1180). The battery has its own friction seal, which is necessary as the battery compartment includes not only the battery terminal openings into the interior of the tablet, but also openings for the unit's microSD and micro SIM slots.

The battery is secured in place with a spring-loaded lever that can be locked in place. The battery, which is hot-swappable, is unlikely to come loose during operation.

Unlike the interior of many Windows tablets, which are jam-packed full of electronics, the T1180 looks remarkably tidy inside. The L-shaped motherboard is much larger than inside earlier Intel Atom-based version of the tablet. Much of the board is covered up with black foil, and a number of circuits sit underneath EMI shielding.

There's a half-size mini PCIe slot for a mobile broadband module. Antennae and their wiring is already pre-installed. WiFi and Bluetooth are handled via an Intel 9260NGW module. Almost all I/O is edge-mounted on the motherboard, exceptions being the surface-mount docking connector and the standard 3.5mm audio jack. This is a very highly integrated and very professionally executed design.

The interior layout is visually dominated by various miniaturized ribbon cables that connect the motherboard to all the antennae, cameras, speakers, and other things mounted inside the T1180. The two speakers, the 1D/2D barcode scanner and the camera module all have their own separate cubbies on the Magnesium chassis of the tablet. Impressive. We also found a USB Type-C connector inside.

The colorful picture to the right was taken with our Flir One infrared camera. It shows the thermal situation inside the xTablet T1180, with darker areas the coolest and bright yellow the hottest. Since the xTablet T1180 doesn't have a fan to remove heat, good thermal management is essential.

As can be seen, the area where the xTablet T1180's processor resides is hottest. In our performance benchmark testing, we measured a maximum surface temperature of about 86 (94)F, not even human body temperature. The four pictures below show the xTablet T1180 going from cold (left) to running the full PassMark 9.0 benchmark suite, again staying well below 90F. Interestingly, the Intel Atom x5-Z8550-powered xTablet T1150 actually ran hotter, reaching into the low 90s in the same test.

As for as protection goes, each of the tablet's peripheral port openings has its own separate protective door with a friction seal. These individual port covers are actually all cut from one single piece of rubbery material, which can easily be replaced. For drop/bump protection, the plastic housing itself has a rubbery protective layer that goes around the entire perimeter of the tablet, and also has small integrated corner bumpers. These bumper areas contain anchors for larger protective bumpers that screw on. If the extra protection afforded by the heavy duty anchors is not needed, they can be taken off and the tablet can be used without them, making for a smaller footprint.

Shown below are a few of interesting details of the xTablet T1180. On the left the tablet's tiny camera and LED illuminator snuggly sitting in their own cubby in the metal chassis. In the middle the two-part protective corner bumpers that are individually replaceable. On the right a closeup of the T1180's tiny 1D/2D industrial grade barcode reader. Sure, there are smartphone apps that can read barcodes with the phone camera. Having a dedicated scanner is much faster and much more accurate.

And more details below: On the left the slots for the tablet's micro SIM and micro SD card. So the battery must be removed to get at those slots and they represent additional openings to the interior. Not ideal. In the middle the small battery that makes hot-swapping of the main battery possible. And on the right a look at the replaceable seal between the two housing halves. The seal is not too complex, and should work well.

Where does the "Y" suffix come from? That indicates that the processor is designed to draw as little power as possible when it's just idling along or doing routine work, but it's still capable of short "turbo" bursts at frequencies of up to 3.9GHz to tackle complex work. To illustrate the power draw situation: desktop processors may have maximum draws from 65 to over 100 watts. Most laptops use "U" Series processors that draw as much as 15 watts. The "Y" Series draws no more than 5 watts. These chips are designed to be the best of both worlds: they are very power-efficient, but they are also still capable of high performance.

So it's no surprise that the xTablet T1180 has a very good display. Measuring 10.1 inches diagonally it's better suited for serious Microsoft Windows-based work than smaller tablets. It offers 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution in 16:10 wide-format. That's three times as many pixels as the 1024 x 768 XGA format that was commonly used in rugged tablets (even ones with larger screen sizes) for many years, and is still being used today.

On a 10.1-inch tablet screen, 1920 x 1200 translates into 224 points per inch (ppi), which is in the same range as Apple's "retina" MacBooks. That means even small text looks very sharp and crisp on the display. The xTablet T1180 uses 10-point projected capacitive multi-touch for effortless tapping, panning, pinching and zooming. While we've never been fans of capacitive touch on small screen Windows tablets, that's much less of an issue on a larger display like the T1180's, and Windows 10 is significantly better suited to capacitive touch than its predecessors, and Microsoft keeps improved touch friendliness.

In everyday use, the display works very well. The spec sheet claims 550 nits luminance. We measured just under 500, which may be due to the T1180's screen protector. To put that in perspective, most standard laptops offer around 250 nits, iPads are generally in the 400 nits range, and displays specially built to use in sunlight may have over 1,000 nits. Subjectively, the T1180 screen is nice and bright, and very vibrant indoors. Outdoors, of course, perceived brightness depends on how bright it is outdoors on any given day and working condition.

The three pictures below show what you can expect outdoors from the T1180. The picture on the left was taken on a bright sunshiny day in the shade. That way, the display looks bright and offer very good contrast. The middle picture shows the impact of refection. Like almost all modern tablets, the T1180 has a glossy display surface. Depending on how the tablet is positioned, there will be reflections. The picture to the right shows the tablet reflecting the blue sky. The T1180 is bright enough to handle outdoors, but, just as with any modern handheld or tablet, one needs to avoid reflections. If that is an issue, MobileDemand offers an anti-glare screen protector.

We cannot overemphasize how important a wide viewing angle is for a satisfying, non-disruptive viewing experience. Older and lesser display technologies are prone to often dramatic color and contrast shifts when viewed from different angles, something that we don't consider acceptable anymore. The xTablet T1180's display is immune to such shifts, which makes it a pleasure to use.

Cameras integrated into handheld and tablet computers have historically underperformed compared to even low-end dedicated cameras and, more recently, the cameras available in virtually every smartphone. Things have gotten better on the built-in camera front, but usually not enough to eliminate the need of taking along a dedicated camera or smartphone if photo or video documentation is needed on the job. This remains a concern given that the cameras in leading smartphones are now capable of excellent picture and video quality.

When we reviewed the xTablet T1150 a good while ago, we complained that due to the absolutely barebones Windows Camera app we couldn't really test all the settings and capabilities of the tablet's camera hardware. The Windows Camera app version (2020.902.0) in the T1180 offered significantly more options — including a "pro mode" with exposure setting, white balance settings, and manual focus — though system integrators and many customers might still miss all the many features available in smartphone cameras these days.

When using the cameras, the documentation camera offers seven different still image resolutions ranging from 0.4mp to the full 8.0mp, and users can shoot video in four resolutions ranging from 480p to 1080p, all at 30 frames per second. In still photography, auto-focus worked fine, images were surprisingly crisp and sharp, and the camera does not over-compress images. Video was sharp enough for almost all purposes and did not lag behind. It pays to take time shooting pictures as there's a slight lag between pressing the shutter and the image being taken.

The front camera, offers seven still image resolutions ranging from 0.03mp to 1.9mp, and six video resolutions, from 120p to 720p. It worked well enough for conferencing.

Below are pictures shot with the xTablet T1180 documentation camera in 3264 x 2448 pixel resolution. To see a full-size image of the compilation, click on the picture.

Like we found in our testing of earlier MobileDemand rugged tablets, the T1180's integrated documentation camera is suitable for most documentation tasks, both in still shots and in video. It's nice to have the big 10-inch screen as a viewfinder. Pictures actually come out a lot sharper than they appear on the screen.

That said, the problem is that smartphone cameras have become so good and so competent. As a result, users expect the same from rugged handhelds and tablets, especially since those cameras should help them with their work and jobs.

Mounting and docking options