Dell’s flagship rugged tablet just got more powerful and lighter

Dell has pushed out a new version of its flagship rugged tablet over at IFA, delivering a lighter and more portable slate which remains as durable as ever.

The Latitude 7212 Rugged Extreme Tablet is, as the name suggests, built to survive usage in hazardous environments, being MIL-STD-810G certified and able to operate in temperatures from -29°C up to 63°C.

The new version offers a choice of Kaby Lake processors: Core i3, i5, or i7 dual-core models, with vPro processors available on the latter two options – or you can go with Skylake if you prefer. You also get integrated graphics, up to 16GB of system memory, along with storage options running up to a 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD.

Nifty screen

The tablet is 27% lighter than its predecessor, weighing 1.27kg in its base (lightest) configuration, and offers an 11.6-inch Gorilla Glass display with a Full HD resolution. The touchscreen can be used with gloves and is designed to be easily readable outdoors in the sunlight.

The slate comes with a rugged keyboard cover, which benefits from RGB backlighting that you might think only belongs on a gaming laptop, but switching the keyboard lighting to red helps save your night vision

And naturally the Latitude 7212 has plenty of security features including data encryption, TPM 2.0, Dell’s ControlVault authentication and an optional fingerprint reader.

The tablet is also compatible with legacy docking solutions from Dell (both desk and vehicle-based), and is available today with a starting price of $1,899 (about £1,470, AU$2,390).