[trepanne]

My choice is Panasonic Toughbooks - the "business rugged" models, not full-on military/law-enforcement tanks.

They're as thick as a Tolkien book and weigh several pounds. They don't have 4K screens. If those tradeoffs are acceptable to you, they excel on pretty much every other metric. They use high-quality standard parts; Linux drivers available for all devices. The design has a high degree of modularity/repairabiity; they're even more field-repairable than Thinkpads. And of course they really are fairly rugged; I can vouch for their being toddler-proof.

It's easy to get these configured for craft personnel; the one I'm using now has RS-232 and MM fiber interfaces... not to mention VGA and SmartCard. No dongles here!

Not to mention all kinds of standard security features... hardware kill switch for the radio; Fn hotkey to immediately blank the screen; quick-release HD cage so you can take your disk with you when you go to the restroom.

They're great machines.

[jolmg]

I concur. I love my Panasonic CF-C2. Among the features you haven't mentioned, it has a 3-end plastic strap on the back that lets you securely and comfortably grab it and hold it in one hand. It also has a small 5-minute internal battery to keep the computer on while hot-swapping the removable battery. I think Panasonic calls it a "bridge" battery. Battery sizes can also be very big. Mine came with a 70 Wh, but there are 100 Wh batteries available online. There's also quite a few removable panels that can be changed for hardware modules. I noticed a used computer online of the same model that came with a fingerprint reader on one of the panels.

Regarding its ruggedness, at least for this model, it makes the computer more comfortable than the average laptop, IMO. I don't have to worry about putting too much pressure on the screen, for example. This is semi-rugged though. There are some really rugged toughbooks that are uncomfortable.

[justaguyhere]

Are they repairable easily? Can I add RAM, hard disk etc by myself, or are they closed like Apple computers?

[odonnellryan]

"The design has a high degree of modularity/repairabiity; they're even more field-repairable than Thinkpads."

[jolmg]

At least on my CF-C2, the hard-drive can almost be changed with just my bare hands. It's in a caddy that you just pull out after pushing a switch on the bottom. To remove the disk from the caddy I need something hard like keys or a usb cable connector to push some locks and free it.

The RAM can be accessed by just removing 1 screw.