Today Dell announced a new rugged tablet for engineers and other professionals that work in harsh environments. The Latitude 7030 Rugged Extreme is a 10-inch Windows tablet that will be available worldwide later this year, according to a Dell blog post.
The new tablet is a smaller, lighter alternative to Dell’s 12-inch Latitude 7230 Rugged Extreme tablet. The 7030 is a more portable option, weighing in at just 2.2 pounds (Dell says it’s the lightest 10-inch fully rugged Windows tablet in the world). That’s before the optional accessories, however. Those include a rigid handle and passive stylus, a detachable RGB-backlit keyboard and a rotating hand strap that allows users to secure the tablet to their wrist, among others.
The Latitude 7030 Rugged Extreme has several features that prepare it for the conditions of a factory floor or harsh outdoor environment. The tablet is IP65 rated against solid and liquid ingress and MIL-STD 810 rated against environmental stress, including a four-foot drop test and temperature test from -20 F to 145 F (-28.8 C to 62.8 C). The tablet’s touchscreen is brightly lit with a max luminance of 1000 nits, and is also glove-compatible. The standard 7030 has a 36Wh internal battery, but users can opt to reconfigure it with a dual hot-swappable battery option to conveniently keep it powered in the field.
Specs of the Dell Latitude 7030 Rugged Extreme
The Dell Latitude 7030 Rugged Extreme tablet can be configured with one of three 12th-Gen Intel Core processors: the i3-1210U, i5-1240U or i7-1260U. All three offer integrated Intel graphics; there are no discrete GPU options. The rugged tablet offers up to 32GB of LPDDR5 memory and maxes out at 2TB of SSD storage. The 10-inch display has a 1920 x 1200 resolution (a 16:10 aspect ratio) with a 60 Hz refresh rate and 100% sRGB color coverage.
The 7030 includes two USB-C ports (either Thunderbolt 4 or DisplayPort depending on the battery configuration), one USB-A port, and one extra port that can optionally be configured as a barcode scanner, RJ-45 port, universal audio jack or additional USB-A port.
The new tablet also includes a lock slot and can be configured with a Micro SD card slot, a Micro SIM slot and an optional smart card reader. It’s got a fingerprint reader on the back and can also be equipped with an infrared camera to support Windows Hello facial recognition. Finally, the tablet comes with two user-programmable hardware buttons for quick access to common tasks.
As for connectivity, the Dell Latitude 7030 Rugged Extreme supports Wi-Fi 6E and 5G and comes with GPS.
Dell has not yet released the price of the Dell Latitude 7030 Rugged Extreme tablet. The company says pricing will be announced closer to shipping later this year.