So I am reading this piece on [Hummer branded laptops] on CNET. And the article is talking about how this laptop can survive six seperate drops from a height of 30 inches, blah blah blah. The whole point being that it is rugged like the Hummer.
I got to thinking….
– Rugged…check
– Expensive…check
– Everyday practical…very debateable
Sure sounds like a Hummer to me. Speaking of which, I don’t think I have every seen a dirty Hummer. Nope, only pristine models with ArmorAll and car wax all but dripping from the car. (note: we are moving into a Hummer rant here)
Makes me wonder how much tougher a Hummer (civilian model, of course) is than, say, a Jeep. I wonder even more how many folks take their Hummers off-road.
I have been camping/hiking a few times this year and I have yet to see one out in county anywhere. The only time I see these monster vehicles are on the Interstate and in town. At a best guess of about 9-10 mpg*, I am guessing that these things might start seeing a decline as we likely say hello to $3 and maybe $4 gasoline by the end of the year.
*The Hummer weighs in at over 8600 lbs. That puts them in the class of Business vehicles, which are exempt from the fuel economy stickers seen on most cars at the dealership.
The new H3 Hummer will supposedly give about 19mpg, which would be a marked improvement. Hilariously enough, CNN [reviewed] the H3 and said it was enough like it bigger siblings, the original Hummer and the H2, that one could still experience the “Hummer lifestyle”:
But for those who want to try out the ascetic Hummer lifestyle, it still has the trademark poor visibility and ultra-truck-like ride and handling.
The biggest thing going for the Hummer, besides its luxury status is its tough looks, but looks can be deceiving:
[RAM tough meets Hummer tough…and its a draw]
Jim McGraw is unintentionally hilarious with his review that starts out [“The H2…costs around $50,000 and will pretty much destroy anything in its path…”]
Yeah, the Hummer limo cracks me up too. It’s all about the image and the lifestyle. Returning to the original point of this post, we actually have an issue with ruggedized laptops here at work. Crews take them out to the field to trouble-shoot maintenance stuff on the plane and they have to meet some standards about surviving falls and such. In places like Iraq where it isn’t easy to get them a new one when it breaks, it makes some kind of sense, but it sure is lame on an everyday basis because the things weigh a ton. The truly funny thing is that they just developed this new lightweight platform that’s really sleek, but they have to put it in this big heavy box that pretty much eliminates all the benefits of the sleek development. The other point of irony is that the things wouldn’t get banged around nearly as much if they were light so they might actually be better off not ruggedizing them. Putting them in a big heavy box is almost an invitation for the military guys to throw them around.