Recomendatations on affordable secondhand ultrarugged laptop lines?

Question

I've been wanting to get an ultrarugged laptop for a while, because I need certain features that I have on my desktop, but I also want some level of portability for some projects I'm working on. Ideally, I'd want something that has

• At least one serial port
• Ethernet
• At least a handful of USB ports
• Capable of running a modern Linux distribution
• CD / DVD drive

I don't care about the screen (resolution, size, etc.), the memory (although I'd prefer 8Gb as a baseline) or even storage space, GPU or CPU really. As long as the device can run a mostly casual load without lagging. The following items would be a nice bonus as well:

• PC card support
• List item

Now the kicker is I'm not looking to may for something new. I understand these are typically for industrial use and can get rather expensive, so I'm certainly not opposed to older product lines. I don't have a real budget set, but I'd like to not spend $5k+ on a device, and would honestly like to keep things below $2k if possible. If I could find one for under $1k that'd be perfect, but I understand it may not be possible.

Answer 1

It might be slightly off, but Cd/DVD is the issue here. the step motors required to run to the um exact is hardly achieved on something that has to survive a lot, it takes too much space. Although most industrial applications do not require watching movies... If you can part with DVD then you can just look for toughbook on e-bay. As these are used by many armies around the world you can often get one under 1K. Second point is the distros DE. I have been Running XFCE On mine ancient CF-19 and only replacing it because I have melted battery sitting too close to fire and need more then two screens. (want to go HDMI)