Durable Laptop Suggestions for the Desert?

glarbl_blarbl asks: "My brother is assigned to the 82nd Airborne in the US Army. His last laptop was a Sony Vaio whose power jack and hard drive both failed after about three years, and it didn't see anything worse than a state college dorm. He has just been ordered back to Iraq, and as the family computer geek I have been trying to help him with some general advice - but I have no experience with laptops in exotic environments. Does anyone know which brands/models would be better suited for life in the desert?"

Re:Look for dustproof design and heat tolerance.

[Solder Fumes]

"Gust of wind" you say.

We all know you forgot it on top of the car when you drove away.

Re:Panasonic Toughbook.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in the US Marine Corps and we use the same thing. If a piece of gear can't be broken my a bunch of dumb jarheads, you know it's built to last.

Re:Panasonic Toughbook.

[biglig2]

Ditto. Did some training with an RAF guy, his toughbook looked like it ate ibooks and crapped ipod shuffles.

Re:The MIL SPEC laptops

[HaydnH]

From the Itronix site: "...as well professional "road warriors" whose notebook must *reliably* endure the tumultuous and often unpredictable conditions that come with using a notebook on the go." "Itronix recommends Windows® XP" Surely those 2 phrases should not be on the same page????

Re:Exactly what is he going to do with it?

[fbjon]

a small 90's era Libretto that I carry around to play GO on, so it gets very harshly treated

Harshly treated? Well, I guess if you scratch the grid onto the lid and really smash those stones when placing them, you could get some harsh treatment by playing go.

Re:Get a good warranty

[rev_sanchez]

abacus: light on features but big on reliability

I've seen them stay up and running for decades under very harsh conditions. There is no problem if you drop it in the water or sand. Replacement parts are cheap.

He'll probably be driving/riding one, so...

[signingis]

Why not a HUMMER [gizmodo.com]? :)