It's rugged; it is strong and sturdy; it is tough - well, that's how Dell describes its latest touch screen Latitude E6400 XFR laptop, which the company is expected to roll out today. Dell claims that its "rugged" and "tough" Latitude E6400 XFR laptop can stand firm against drops, dust and high-pressure water sprays.

Dell says that its Latitude E6400 XFR laptop, which is a superb convergence of a business-laptop and military-grade protection features, is designed for tough guys. The rugged laptop is developed according to U. S. military specifications. The outer shell of the laptop is designed using the same type of high-tech polymers that are used for military applications such as ballistic armor.

According to Dell, while powered down, the Latitude E6400 XFR laptop can withstand a drop-and-impact of up to four feet, but while powered-up, the laptop can withstand a drop from a height of three feet. It can withstand drops from a truck hood or a command-center table.

Dell also claims that the Latitude E6400 XFR laptop can stand firm against rain and wind gusts of up 70 miles per hour, and it can be operated in temperatures from -20 degrees Fahrenheit (-33.88 degrees Celsius) to 145 degrees Fahrenheit (63 degrees Celsius), and it can also work at an altitude of 15,000 feet, for an hour.

The Round Rock, Texas based manufacturer of Latitude E6400 XFR laptop details that the rugged laptop passed 13 required tests, plus two additional ones to meet the military standard. In the tests, it successfully withstood moisture, dust, and extreme heat and cold. The tough laptop stood firm against the blunt-force of 1-inch ball bearings that was thrown onto screen from a height of 30 inches.

Dell says that the Latitude E6400 XFR laptop is available in both touch and non-touch versions. In order to increase daylight visibility, the 14.1-inch screen of the laptop has been designed with a boosted backlight and reduced reflectivity. The screen features stylus that allows touch-screen usage even when wearing heavy gloves, or hands stained with oil or other smear-leaving materials. It has blackout mode for the field pros that require total darkness very quickly; the mode cuts the keyboard backlight and LEDs and dims screen-brightness.

Dell's Latitude E6400 XFR laptop weighs 8.5 pounds (3.87 kilograms) with a six-cell battery and a solid-state storage drive. Powered by a 2.66-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P9600 processor, the laptop comes with Nvidia Quadro 160M graphics card, and supports up to 8GB of RAM and up to 120GB of storage on a hard drive or 128GB of SSD storage. It runs Windows Vista and has Wi-Fi, 3G mobile broadband and GPS antennas.

With its Latitude E6400 XFR laptop, Dell is entering into the "rugged" laptop market to compete with Panasonic, Lenovo and other manufacturers. Dell Latitude E6400 XFR laptop will go on sale March 10. It will be available for about US$4,299 in the U. S., Canada, France, Spain, the U. K., Germany and Italy.