Does Asus intends to take the rugged laptops world by storm?

At Computer Taipei 2007, Asus introduced Hermes Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC) and a rugged notebook with the name N13i, based on a Santa Rosa mobile platform from Intel.

Hermes Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC)

Hermes has what it takes to enter the tough competition of rugged laptops: is shock-resistant, dust proof and very portable. Well, Hermes UMPC is dust proof due to the rubber covering but one of the most important things to be considered is the fact that Hermes meets the MIL-STD-810F shock-resistance standard, which put it right in the line with the other rugged laptops on the market.

Form the point of view of water proof and dust proof, it is classified as IP54 and it has a low consumption fanless CPU, which is a must have when you fight dust. The computer that was presented was equipped with a HDD, but, as one of the team members said, Asus plans to equip it with SSD for a higher impact resistance.

N13i rugged notebook

N13i is a rugged notebook, equipped with 13.3-inch LCD display and the Core 2 Duo processor.It has the ability to rotate the display on horizontal direction. N13i rugged notebook meets MIL-STD-810F standard and IP54 classification and also the noise-resistance MIL-STD-461E standard.From the point of view of networking and communications, Asus provided communication modules for wireless LAN supporting IEEE 802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth and HSDPA.

Regarding pricing and availability, it is said to start shipping samples in August/September 2007 and get to mass production in November. Hermes is priced at around $700 while N13i around $3000.