April/May 2008

Mobile computer manufacturer Getac claims to have developed the lightest fully rugged tablet currently available on the market. Its new E100 weighs just 1.4kg.

The unit is small, but not tiny. It has an 8.4in TFT SVGA touch screen display, which can incorporate the company's optional 800nits Sunlight Readable technology.

The processor is an Intel A110 running at 800MHz, which is supported by up to 1GB of RAM. The operating system is Microsoft XP Tablet Edition.

The E100 comes as standard with 802.11b/g wireless network connectivity, and can optionally include Bluetooth V2.0 and GPRS/EV-DO/HSDPA.

Security is provided by Trusted Platform Module (TPM 1.2) or 'Root-of-Trust' compatibility. This uses 'chain of trust procedures' to monitor access from pre-boot to OS load, and is said to guard against unauthorised tampering from physical theft or software attack. There are also various password security options.