7. Conclusions

Twinhead, maker of the Durabook, has certainly put together a rugged notebook with the D14RY. They claim that the magnesium alloy used in the Durabook's chassis is 20 times stronger than plastic. Reality is that Durabook isn't the only notebook with some sort of Magnesium alloy, HP is among those that has been using the material in its notebooks.

The extra shock protection on the corners' of the Durabook and around the CPU, RAM, hard drive and DVD drive allowed the notebook to survive Ben Meyer's and Shelton Romhanyi's assault (see video) but there are other 'rugged' tests that we didn't subject the Durabook D14RY too. Ever leave a notebook in the trunk of your car outside in L.A in August over a weekend? It's a place from which few notebooks return.

Only the keyboard is protected from spills on the D14RY. Our spill test went a tad overboard and some of the ports on the side got wet. Since ports aren't protected on this model, users should allow enough time to ensure thorough drying before turning the notebook back on. We waited over night. Had the spill not gone over the edges of the keyboard deck, we would have been comfortable turning it on much sooner.

With a display resolution of only 1024x768 the D14RY is severely undernourished for intense application use on Vista. The integrated Intel 945GM Express Chipset is a mediocre graphics controller at best and limits the graphics power and potential of this notebook. As our tests show, it's not for gaming or workstation use.

However, the 2.33 GHz Intel T7600 CPU, 2 GB of fast memory and fairly fast 160 GB SATA hard disk drive outfit the D14RY well for modern office applications and browsing the Internet.

Still, it's not every notebook that you would spill liquids on or dare drop from three feet just to see if it would still work. For most vendors such shenanigans are not covered under warranty. With the Durabook D14RY, Twinhead is clearly aiming at filling a market niche for an adequately performing home and office notebook that can handle exceptional problems that arise during everyday notebook use.

Durabook notebooks are hard to find. However, a search of the Internet will find a few US vendors. As configured, our D14RY came in at around $2,250.

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