 This here's the Dill Rugged X3. You're welcome. There's Alex getting Canadian soil all over the keyboard. Can't do that with a MacBook and here's David doing bicep curl. Here's Alex editing spreadsheets in the shower. That's what I call peak efficiency. There's David crying openly to the iron giant. And here's Alex throwing it in the back of his truck. There's David using it to fight off a bear at night. Oh yeah! Yeah! Yeah! But what has Dill had to give up so that the Latitude 7424 Rugged Xtreme can handle those extreme conditions and who is this beast actually for? Is your wallet full of pointless stuff like hotel room keys and spent gift cards? Well Ridge Wallet can change those habits and when you use offer code Linus you can save 10% off with free worldwide shipping at the link below. I feel like this goes without saying but the build quality of the Dill Latitude Rugged Xtreme 7424 is beyond exceptional. Like when I say there's no flex in the chassis I don't mean there's like no flex when you just touch around the keyboard. I mean you could literally stand on this thing and it's not going to care. But although I appreciate the armor the Rugged Xtreme is still a shockingly thick machine. With around 60mm of girth it's not just thick but it's like 3 times thicker than a thick laptop. But like that thickness isn't here for nothing since the Rugged Xtreme sports one of the most impressive assortments of IO I've ever seen. Which might be kind of surprising given that you can't even see any of it right now. This is because one of the Rugged Xtreme's key features is an IP65 rating against dust and pressurized water. So every USB port or headphone jack represents a potential ingress point. To combat this Dill has locked all of these ports away so accessing is a little different than your average laptop. So what you get standard is two USB 3 Type A ports, standard headphone jack, USB-C and power. From here you have some options for IO based on exactly what your needs are. Our spec has HDMI, Ethernet, Redundant Ethernet, Serial and a full size DisplayPort and although that's quite a bit over on the right side is where things get really weird. So over here we have another USB Type A, a SD card reader and a sim slot, a Blu-ray player, a freaking swappable PCI storage bay and a smart card reader which can be used for identification and validation of who is using the Rugged Xtreme. The Rugged Xtreme also comes with a certification for a large swath of tests like IEC ingress testing, environmental testing and hazardous location testing. This means it's rated to do a whole number of really silly things like be operational 15,000 feet in extreme cold down to negative 29 degrees Celsius. It will shake off 40 degree shock and won't cause an explosion if you're using it around flammable gas which is pretty great if you're using it on an oil platform along with a bunch of other things aligned on this four page document. As far as performance goes the Rugged Xtreme is no slouch but it also won't blow you away. Rocking a quad core Intel i7-8650U and an AMD RX 540 for graphics it won't be playing the latest games at full details but if you have a moment while out on the field it can run esports titles reasonably well. Aside from games the system feels very snappy overall and should be plenty powerful for doing things like running medium sized MATLAB simulations or editing smaller CAD assemblies. My favorite stat though is the battery capacity. With two 50 watt hour batteries you get the exact maximum amount allowed on a plane but even if that isn't enough they're both hot swappable so you can easily just pop it out and pop another one right back in if you're running low and far from a plug like we are right now. But one thing, with all of those components you'll be creating a fair bit of heat and since the whole thing is waterproof how the heck do they dissipate all of that? Well if you remove the bottom panel which actually is made of magnesium and not the plastic I originally thought it was we can see that the heat pipes go from the GPU and CPU and storage kind of like you'd expect and then through a sealed wall with the heat sink and fan on the other side allowing the heat to get out without letting any water or dust in. While we're in here we get a glimpse at the Rugged Extreme's above average upgradeability with easy access to two RAM slots and external access to the batteries and storage. If you happen to actually break it though it does come with Dell's Pro Support Plus which gives you top priority and even mission critical four hour parts and labor response although it does say that varies on regions so they probably won't air drop you an SSD in the middle of the desert but like in downtown Seattle they'll probably like bike it to you or something. Now the display doesn't have the best color reproduction ever I certainly wouldn't use it for photo or video editing but overall it's still pretty good it has exceptional brightness for use outdoors has awesome viewing angles and will more than do the job when you're out on the job. The Rugged Extreme also supports a touch display and pen support which is conveniently located on the side of the laptop and it's pretty easily the worst touchscreen I've used for years but that's not without reason. Most touchscreens nowadays use capacitive technology which uses the fact that your fingers are a bit conductive to determine where exactly you've touched on the screen. The Rugged Extreme however uses a resistive touchscreen which works based on pressure being applied to the display and also just makes it way worse to use with your finger but it also still works when you're wearing gloves and have water or dirt all over your hands so it fits the laptop. The touchpad also makes use of resistive technology and feels like it's fresh out of 2006 but once again it has the benefits of gloved operation and honestly after I used it for like a day I stopped noticing just how mediocre it was so I guess it just comes with the territory of something this rugged. What isn't mediocre though is the keyboard it doesn't quite have the precise tactile feel that other keyboards have like it does have a rubber seal underneath it to keep water and dust out but overall the typing experience is still excellent at this point I'd give it a solid A but surprisingly it has RGB so I'll bump it up to an A+. As for the hideable webcam it isn't the greatest I've ever experienced but I really appreciate the inclusion of Windows Hello facial recognition and the fingerprint reader both nice to haves but is the Dell Latitude 7424 Rugged Extreme really about nice to haves? Like would I recommend this to the average person? No, not at all it's like $4,500 and it's an absolute bear to use but if you're working around flammable gases not blowing up is way more important than an Alcantara wrist rest. If you're doing research in the Arctic your computer turning on is a lot more important than a 4k display and if you're wading through a bog in the jungle I would take water resistance above a 2080 so if those are the kind of things you get up to the Rugged Extreme is going to be an awesome travel companion. Audiobooks can be the perfect sidekick for any number of summer activities like hiking, sunbathing on the beach, running, road tripping, kayaking, I mean so many phones are waterproof now, like you can take audiobooks with you anywhere and Audible has got you covered. They've got their Audible Originals collection that features exclusive audio titles created by celebrated storytellers from worlds as diverse as theatre, journalism, literature and more and you can get your first audiobook for free plus two Audible Originals when you try Audible for 30 days. Go to audible.com slash Linus or text Linus to 500 500. One book that we suggest that is only available on Audible is Cracking the Tech Career. This audiobook provides great advice on career paths in the technology industry and about how to make your application the most attractive one in the deep pile of candidates. So again that's audible.com slash Linus or text Linus to 500 500.