Embedded reporters aren't allowed to carry weapons -- it's a violation of the rules of war. But I never felt completely unarmed in Iraq. Not when I had my gazillion-pound, armored, shock-proof laptop in my backpack - ready to smack someone upside the head, at a moment's notice.
The Augmentix XTG is a Dell Latitude ATG630, modified to survive in bad, bad places. It's about three times thicker than the 'puter I'm typing on now. Every port -- including the fingerprint reader -- is locked down or sealed up, to survive dust or muck. The thing is encased in some kind of "Dense Die Cast Magnesium Housing." A set of red lights on top of the screen lets you type at night. A handle across the width makes it ideal for chucking at an attacker. (Good thing I threw discus for a while in high school.)
All of which, you would figure, would make the XTG absolutely perfectly for a place like Iraq. Instead, just about every soldier and every Marine started laughing at me, when I'd lug the thing out of my pack. Typical comments: "Holy shit - that thing is huge!" and "What* is *that?"
You see, in Iraq, most of the guys in uniform already have to schlep around 40, 50, 60 pounds worth of armor, ammo, helmet, and radios. So they want their laptops to be as light as possible -- not the other way around Plus, they're not whipping out their notebooks in the middle of a firefight; they're using 'em back on the patrol base. So there's no real need for so much reinforcement. I felt kind of silly hauling such a beast around.
That said, I really loved this laptop, in all its solidity.
Especially since my previous notebook, a Sony Vaio, had its screen shatter -- leaving my field of view strewn with gloppy purple lines, like I was flashing back to Haight-Ashbury, 1968. Especially since it took exactly a month for casing of this new Macbook of mine to start cracking along the sides. Serves me right, for buying such a wussy machine.
