Full ruggedness and state-of-the-art performance in a machine no larger or heavier than the semi-rugged competition.
(by Conrad H. Blickenstorfer)

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On June 3, 2020, Getac introduced the B360, a fully rugged 13.3-inch laptop designed, according to the company, to set a powerful new benchmark for innovation in the rugged computing industry. Fully engineered for 5G, the B360 claims best-in-class computing speed, brightness, and rugged reliability, resulting in a highly advanced mobile solution that excels in even the most challenging working conditions.

So where does the new Getac B360 fit into the rugged laptop landscape? Given its "B360" designation, you'd think it might be a replacement for the Getac B300, but it's not. That old warhorse was designed specifically to take on the original Toughbook, heavy build and square-ish 4:3 screen aspect ratio and all. That rivalry, however, came to an end, each venerable platform having yielded to lighter and more modern designs.

Is the new B360 then taking on the new guard of lighter, thinner more modern laptops, like the Panasonic Toughbook 55, the Dell Latitude 5420 Rugged or the Durabook S14I? That's much closer, with each of those machines pretty much the same size and weight as the new B360. But it'd still be comparing apples and oranges because those machines are all semi-ruggeds with only moderate ingress protection and drop specs. Whereas the new Getac B360 is a fully rugged machine with IP66 sealing and a most impressive 6-foot drop spec.

What does that mean? In essence that Getac baked full and not just "semi" ruggedness into the B360 even though it has the footprint, thin profile and low weight of a semi-rugged. That is quite remarkable. But Getac didn't stop even there. It also leapfrogged the competition by equipping the B360 with the very latest Intel 10th generation processors and the tech that goes with it, by far the brightest screen, and that superfast PCIe NVMe solid state disk technology, and more. A new benchmark for sure.

The pictures above and to the left show how sleek and slender the new Getac B360 is. It starts at only around five pounds, just where the semi-rugged competition is (weight depends much on configuration and options in this class). In order to make that possible, Getac had to compromise on battery. The two (hot-swappable) slender power packs add up to just 46.6 watt-hours. Given the very bright screen, that's not much, even with the new Intel chips' excellent power management.

Now let's look at the new tech. Here, Getac treats B360 customers to state-of-the-art "Comet Lake" Intel 10th generation i5 and i7 Core processors. Led by an i7-10710U chip with six cores and 12 threads and two quad-core options, there should be plenty of performance. These new marvels are amazingly power-efficient, too. They can idle along at very low clock frequencies, but quickly ramp up to blistering turbo speed to do the heavy lifting. Here are the three chips customers can select from (see full table here):

The B360 comes with up to 64GB of fast DDR4 RAM and up to 1 terabyte of super-fast PCIe NVMe solid state main storage. We're very glad that Getac made the step up to PCIe NVMe as the default. Customers can opt for up to another terabyte of solid state storage, but that is of the older SATA standard.

The B360 display is of the IPS variety, which means it has virtually perfect viewing angles from all directions. Its 13.3-inch size is a little less than the 14-inch standard of the semi-rugged competition, but that's hardly noticeable. 1920 x 1080 pixel full-HD resolution makes for 166 PPI (pixels per inch), not "retina" class, but par for rugged machines. The display's 1400 nits luminance beats the 800-1000 nits offered by the semi-ruggeds in this size and weight class. There's, of course, capacitive multi-touch.

Unlike tablets that can get away with minimal wired connectivity, rugged laptops are expected to have all the ports that may be needed on the job. The B360 delivers with three USB Type A ports, an RJ45 LAN jack, HDMI, audio jack, and serial plus either VGA, DisplayPort, or a reversible USB Type C port.

On the wireless side we're again state-of-the-art with a 802.11ax Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 (see description here), Bluetooth 5.1 and optional 4G LTE mobile broadband plus accommodations for 5G and GPS and antenna pass-throughs.

With security becoming ever-growing more important, Getac equipped the B360 with TPM 2.0, a physical cable lock slot, Smart Card reader, and optional HF RFID reader and Windows Hello webcam.

And then there's the amazing fact that the Getac B360 is a fully rugged device in body that's no larger or heavier than the competition's semi-ruggeds. That includes IP66 sealing (dustproof, and protected against strong jets of water from all directions) compared to the competitors' IP52 or IP53, a stunning 6-foot drop spec per MIL-STD-810H, and a very wide operating temperature range of -20 to 145 degrees Fahrenheit. Optionally available is certification as electrical equipment for use in Class I, Division 2 hazardous locations (i.e. places where ignitable concentrations of flammable gases, vapors or liquids may happen).

But what if you like the full ruggedness and high performance and light weight of the B360, but there's a few more things you need on your machine — like additional features and build options that the military may need, or bigger batteries, more ports, perhaps a PCMCIA or ExpressCard slot, discrete graphics, or a DVD or Blu Ray drive? That is what the also new Getac B360 Pro is for. It's the same design, but a bit thicker and heavier (like what Dell does with the Latitude 5424 Rugged compared to the 5420).

We haven't had a chance at hands-on with the new Getac B360, but from what we can tell by the specs, pics and descriptions, Getac really aced this one. Full ruggedness in a body no larger or heavier than the competition's semi-ruggeds! Check back — we'll perform a full, detailed review with benchmarks as soon as we'll get a machine from Getac. -- Conrad H. Blickenstorfer, June 2020