If you read our story about Roper’s coveted SwitchBack PC hitting the commercial market, you might’ve wanted a closer look at the goods. We got one to play around with, and it’s definitely a little bundle of bulletproof joy. It weighs in at just 3lbs 2oz all by itself; when you pop on the standard BackPack (USB, VGA, serial port, audio in/out), it hits 3lbs 11oz. We were surprised to see that it had an integrated (and fully waterproof) speaker, as well as a stylus plus mouse-stick for a choice of cursor movement. Even with a 1GHz Celeron, it started up nice and quick, and the screen looked great, albeit tiny. Stay tuned—in about a week, we should have a video of this baby getting put through the paces big time. Can you say “dunk tank”? Our interns can.
Roper Mobile announced that it was buying Black Diamond Advanced Technology, creator of the SwitchBack super-rugged UMPC. The machine debuted last fall, wooing fans with its hot-swappable batteries, all-weather reflective screen and full waterproofing to three meters underwater. But until now no one could actually buy one. Though not many knew it, SwitchBack was also the brains used in Intel’s Satanic Chopper. Today the computers are finally for sale. We talked to creator Todd Einck about his uniquely kick-ass UMPC:
The problem the company dealt with was this: how do you build a PC capable of withstanding extremes of temperature, moisture, impact and dust, but then let some dude in the field plug in his iPod or digital camera, and screw it all up? Says Einck: “How do you hang on to a tablet if it has all this junk hanging off it? We embed all that stuff in BackPacks.”
