For years now, Panasonic's Toughbook line of rugged portables has been considered the gold standard for durable laptops. But that doesn't mean that there isn't room for a little competition. Looking to really get in on the ruggedized laptop market, Dell has launched the Latitude D630 XFR edition, a Penryn-based Toughbook competitor. Built to the U.S. Department of Defense's MIL-STD 810F standards, the D630 XFR edition is aimed squarely at government, commercial and military users. The D630 XFR edition sports a 14.1-inch outdoor readable display (with optional touchscreen), up to a 2.2Ghz Intel T7500 CPU, up to 4GB of RAM, either an 80GB HDD or a 32/64GB SSD, WiFi, Bluetooth and WWAN. Dell claims that this machine is capable of "23-percent better system performance than the Panasonic CF-30" while maintaining an ability to operate in "extreme temperatures, moisture and altitude." Available now for just south of $4000.

For more on the new rugged laptop:
- see this press release