US Army goes for Windows with an order of nearly 10,000 ruggedized tablets

Aerospace and defense electronic supplier Getac has announced the purchase of 9783 of their F110 G3 rugged tablets with docking stations by the US Army. The tablets are aimed to replace the dated management information systems currently in use by the Army's Active, Reserve, and National Guard elements, according to Getac's press release.

The F110 G3 not only has a rugged chassis that is MIL-STD 810G and IP65 certified, but its touch-layer has been fused to the LCD panel in order to improve durability. The tablet also has not just one but two removable and hot-swappable batteries, for a total capacity of 4320mAH. The silicon inside is relatively unremarkable, with Intel Core i U-series chips, up to 16GB DDR4 RAM, and an XGA (768p) resolution screen—but it's the tablet's extra features that are likely why it was chosen: TPM 2.0, DDS chassis integrity security, NFC and RFID reader, fingerprint scanner, smart card reader, dedicated GPS module, and a bar-code scanner round out the tablet's capabilities.

The new tablets are set to be distributed by May 2017.