The GammaTech Durabook SA14 was announced in April 2013 as a contemporary laptop solution for customers that need more durability and ruggedness than consumer notebooks generally provide, but still at an affordable price. GammaTech also sought to make available a product that could easily easily be adapted to any application or environment. Right upfront: the starting MSRP of the Durabook SA14 is US$1,499, which is about twice as much as that of a consumer notebook, but only about half as much as a dedicated vertical market rugged notebook. So what is GammaTech offering here?
But first, where does GammaTech fit in amongst rugged computer manufacturers? Primarily as a respected behind-the-scenes OEM to a number of major resellers, although the company also sells under its own brand. Those who monitor the rugged computing market with all of its complex OEM/ODM/reseller relationships know that GammaTech Computer Corporation is a branch of Taiwanese Twinhead. Twinhead and GammaTech models are essentially the same though the naming is sometimes slightly different. To add to the confusion, there's the clean and quite informative durabook.com site, but there's also what appears to be an older gammatechusa.com site that shows additional products and isn't nearly as polished.
But on to the SA14. It's a semi-rugged notebook with a wide-format 14-inch resistive touch display (the touch part is optional). Customers have their choice of some very powerful standard voltage Intel 3rd generation i5 and i7 Core processors (the website mentions an i3 chip as well). These are Ivy Bridge processors, which means not only great overall speed, but also very acceptable graphics performance (and GammaTech offers an optional discrete AMD Radeon E6760 MXM graphics module (see here)), excellent power management, and superior data transfer speeds via USB 3.0 and PCIe 3.0. There's also a choice between the Intel HM76 chipset and the QM77, where the latter supports some additional Intel technologies such as vPro, Active Management, Trusted Execution, etc.
Power is supplied by a standard 9-cell battery (no detail on watt-hours) good for 6-7 hours. That can be boosted to 9.5-11 hours by adding a secondary 6-cell battery.
For storage, there are a variety of shock-mounted 2.5-inch SATA 3.0 hard drives or SSDs. There's also an optional internal mSATA to support Intel Rapid Start Technology for fast resume. The device uses 204-pin DDR3 SO-DIMM modules with capacities of up to 8GB. No indication as to how many RAM slots. The multimedia bay can accommodate either a Super-Multi DVD writer or an optional Blu-Ray drive.
The default OS of the SA14 is Windows 7 Professional, and GammaTech says the laptop is Windows 8 ready. The wide-format 1366 x 768 pixel layout is indeed suitable for Microsoft's new OS with its horizontally staggered live tiles, and the SA14 offers an optional touch screen. It's resistive, however, and single-touch. GammaTech describes the display as "high brightness," and with up to 500 nits it's indeed about 2.5 times as bright as a standard consumer notebook. There's a stealth mode that may be required by some customers and agencies.
Measuring 13.5 x 9.65 x 1.85 inches and weighing 6.5 pounds, the SA14 is reasonably compact and lightweight, albeit thicker than most consumer laptops. It has a full-size spill-resistant (and optionally waterproof) 86-key keyboard.
The Durabook SA14 has very good onboard connectivity. There are two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, VGA and HDMI for video, an RJ45 gigabit LAN jack (a second one is optional), a docking connector and even a by now fairly rare DB9 RS232 serial port. There is also an ExpressCard 54 slot (or a Smart Card reader), a PC Card Type II slot, and and an SDHC card reader. On the wireless side are dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 via an Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 module, and customers can opt for either a wireless carrier and technology-independent Gobi 3000 module or LTE. The system also comes with an integrated 1.3-megapixel webcam.
GammaTech usually lists what the case and chassis are made of, but so far that's missing from the SA14 specs. Ruggedness specs are at the semi-rugged level, which here means the machine is drop-resistant and able to survive multiple drops from three feet. Operating temperature is an adequate 32 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit. Ingress protection is at the IP43 level, which means the laptop is protected against solid objects (but not dust), and the "3" means it's protected against water spray head-on. That's better than nothing, but we're not talking serious outdoor protection here. Unfortunately, GammaTech, with the exception of a couple of references to MIL-STD-810G, doesn't supply other ruggedness data. The company, which has so much experience in rugged design and construction, really should provide that data in its spec sheets and documentation.
The press release mentioned that the SA14 starts at US$1,499, but desirable options might quickly increase that price into the mid 2000s. That's still not bad for a toughened-up laptop with contemporary technology, great configurability, and great battery life from a pedigreed rugged computing manufacturer.
