getac_ux10_reprint.qxp_Layout 1 4/15/20 7:27 PM Page 1 SPECIAL REVIEW GETAC UX10 FULLY RUGGED HIGH-PERFORMANCE 10-INCH TABLET OFFERS MULTI-MODE USAGE VIA DETACHABLE KEYBOARD DOCK by Conrad H. Blickenstorfer; photography by Carol Cotton Getac introduced the rugged 10-inch UX10 tablet in 2019 to meet the challenges faced by emergency serv- ice and public safety personnel, but suitable for other demanding applications in utilities, field services, man- ufacturing and more. Implemented as a “detachable laptop,” the UX10 can be used either as a tablet or with an optional keyboard dock. The UX10 further shines with an all quad-core 8th generation Intel Core proces- sor lineup of powerful CPUs. Getac’s strong answer to Panasonic The UX10 is Getac’s answer to the Panasonic Tough- book 20, just as Getac’s larger K120 competes with Panasonic’s Toughbook 33. All are hybrids consisting of a tablet and an optional detachable keyboard that adds functionality and connectivity. Getac bills the UX10 as a “rugged tablet with enhanced versatility.” With the UX10, Getac not only has a direct com- petitor to the Toughbook 20 but also another true hy- brid, which represent a growing market segment. The UX10 also adds a strong 10-inch tablet to Getac’s line- up, a good move considering the ongoing popularity of the 10-inch form factor and the 10-inch tablet en- ties by pretty much all of the competition. Like all hybrids the UX10 is a compromise, but it ably addresses the needs of those who want both. It is The 10-inch display of the UX10 is the size of the orig- Due to weight and space issues, battery size is al- a full-function tablet, and with the keyboard dock it inal iPad — not too big and not too small. Used as a ways a tricky thing with tablets. Getac didn’t resort to is full-function laptop. notebook with the optional keyboard, the screen is the gimmick of designing the UX10 with two tiny bat- fairly small, with standard notebook displays usually teries just to be able to claim a low starting weight What do you get with the Getac UX10? measuring between 13 and 16 inches, though Apple with only one battery installed. Instead, the tablet The Getac UX10 is a very rugged tablet computer that is very successful with its smaller MacBooks. The table comes with a strong 46.6 watt-hour battery, and there provides flexibility and substantial computing power below shows where the UX10 fits into Getac’s grow- is an optional 99.8 watt-hour extended life battery. An in a remarkably compact package. With its 10.8 x 7.5 ing roster of rugged tablets. optional bridge battery allows hot-swapping. inch footprint, the UX10 is small enough to fit almost The UX10 comes with up to 16GB of fast DDR4 Despite its low weight, the Getac UX10 feels tough anywhere. It's also less than an inch thick and weighs RAM and up to 1 terabyte of AES encrypted solid state and substantial. It’s an elegant, purposeful design just 2.7 pounds. And unlike earlier rugged tablets in storage. The IPS display has 1920 x 1200 pixel resolu- where form follows function. The tablet shape looks this class that often sacrificed performance in order tion, making for a sharp 224 pixels per inch. Its 1000 like it was designed to accommodate screw-on cor- to get acceptable battery life, the UX10 lets you have nits luminance is higher than the Panasonic Tough- ner bumpers, and maybe those are available. Our unit your cake and eat it, too — Intel 8th generation Core book 20’s 800 nits. There’s, of course, 10-point capac- came with the sturdy optional carry handle. processor and related technology provide excellent itive multi-touch, a hard tip stylus, and an optional Getac knows that sealing and protection of ports performance and very good battery life. active digitizer. is important in rugged computers and gave the UX10 elaborate sealed snap-click protective doors. It is a good, reliable solution. Our unit came with the optional fingerprint scan- ner. Instead of the fingerprint reader, customers may opt for a magnetic stripe reader or a serial port and an RJ45 LAN jack. Our unit also came with an optional 1D/2D barcode reader. Instead of that, customers can select from seven other options: COM port or MicroSD slot or USB 3.0 Type-A port or USB 3.1 Type-C port or LAN port (RJ-45) or VGA port or HF RFID reader. The backside of the UX10 offers additional cus- tomization potential. Available are an HF RFID read- er or a Smart Card reader or a bridge battery, or a bridge battery/Smart Card reader combo. Its three expansion areas make the Getac UX10 cus- tomizable to suit a very large number of possible ap- plications. But since each of the three expansion ar- eas can only accommodate ONE of the many available options, customers still might have to make some hard choices. getac_ux10_reprint.qxp_Layout 1 4/15/20 7:27 PM Page 2 SPECIAL REVIEW Powerful Intel 8th generation Core this one is quiet and doesn’t come on often, but it IS processor technology a fan. The reason for its presence likely is that an ac- A good part of the Getac UX10’s appeal comes from tive fan offers better protection against overheating getting so much computing power in such a compact and, more importantly, makes it possible for the CPU package. That’s made possible by a selection of Intel's to operate without significant performance drops even 8th generation of Core processors, the first ever to of- at the upper end of its operating temperature range. fer quad-core configurations in mobile CPUs. Four cores can do more than two cores, and this allowed Excellent power conservation Intel to lower the base clock speeds of these chips, cut- Battery technology has come a long way, but progress ting down power consumption and heat generation. has been slower than overall progress in electronics Other ongoing refinements allowed raising maximum and miniaturization. Does that mean today’s slender “turbo” clock speeds. The combined result is higher batteries have less capacity? Often they do. Rugged peak performance with an overall power draw that’s devices of the past routinely had standard batteries no more (and sometimes less) than it was with less with 90 or 100 watt-hour capacities. Today it’s often powerful dual-core processors. just half of that, and the UX10 is no exception. Is the Getac offers the choice of four mobile chips for the 46.6 watt-hour capacity of its standard battery enough? UX10. They are the Core i5-8265U and i5-8365U, and Getac doesn’t list battery life in the UX10’s specs. the Core i7-8565U and i7-8665U. The table belowshows Panasonic lists 8.5 hours for the Toughbook 20 with Exemplary design the important specs of the four available processors. its 29.6 watt-hour battery. The UX10 has both a big- Many tablets are just slim boxes with a circuit board ger battery and more powerful processors. We used inside. Others are complex and highly integrated sys- PassMark’s BatteryMon to measure power draw. tems where each part is exactly right and in exactly With the Windows 10 slider moved all the way to the right place. The Getac UX10 is one of the latter. “Best battery life” and screen brightness cranked all There’s a strong magnesium frame for strength. And the way down, we saw a minimum of just 2.4 watts. there’s a tough plastic enclosure consisting of numer- That’s the lowest value we’ve ever seen in an Intel Core ous parts, with everything designed to fill a purpose. processor-powered device. With the backlight set to The detail in this tablet is amazing. It is a great 50% it was 3.3 watts, and with the backlight at 100% demonstration of how form can follow function and 4.2 watts. Dividing the available 46.6 watt-hours of a still be practical and attractive. The UX10 convinces fully charged battery by the lowest observed battery inside and out, with complete attention paid not only draw of 2.4 watts would indicate a theoretical battery to the outside but also to the inside that hardly any- life of a very impressive 19.4 hours. one ever sees. Even on the back of the machine, Getac Putting the Windows 10 slider to “Best perform- didn’t just phone it in. It is tough plastic, but with a ance” and toggling the backlight to 0%, power draw very scratch-proof finish powdery finish that looks The Core i7 chips have higher clock speeds and was 2.9 watts, not much higher than in battery con- just like powder-coated magnesium. more Smart Cache than the Core i5 models, but oth- servation mode. With the backlight set to the 50% lev- er than that, there isn’t a large difference. All are quad- el, it was 3.7 watts, still good for 12.6 hours. But with Other impressive details that caught our eyes: core designs with eight threads and 15 watts thermal the backlight at 100%, power draw more than doubled n A small board to plug in all the antenna wires go- design power, and all use Intel UHD Graphics 620 with to 7.5 watts, reducing battery life to 6.2 hours. ing from wireless modules (WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, very similar clock speeds.