Notebook : Sahara NB55131-CK76 Rugged

Many professions need a rugged laptop due to their work nature. They could be architects, engineers or military personnel. In fact, military personnel are the biggest consumers for laptops with shockproof and water resistance feature. The market already has laptops for this consumer group from various companies such as Panasonic's Toughbook, ACI's Commando to name a few. They cost a lot and are justified for the amount of torture they can withstand. Sahara has one such notebook in its range of laptops. Sahara is a well known brand in India for its value for money deals in computer peripherals. Similarly, this laptop that we have with us today is perfectly priced, but can it withstand the torture levels as other brands in the market?

Specifications
Intel" Pentium" M Processor 740 Intel Centrino Mobile Technology 1.73 GHz (2MB L2 cache)
512 MB DDR2 RAM (533 MHz FSB)
35.8 cm (14.1) TFT Non-Glare Type
Intel 915GM Chipset
80 GB Hard drive
Dual Layer DVD-RW Optical Drive
Realtek HD Sound Effect Manager 16 bit AC'97
Two speakers with chamber
WLAN: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG WLAN

IO Ports
External display (VGA) port VGA
USB 2.0 Ports (2)
Headphones/speaker/line-out jack
MIC/Line-in jack
LAN: Integrated 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet
Serial Port
Modem: Internal 56K Fax Modem
Kensington lock

Dimensions
Length: 31.5 cm
Width: 26 cm
Height/Thickness: 4 cm
Weight: 2.67 kg

Performance
The Sahara CK76 is a great performer, throw it from table height or spill a glass of water purposely and it will withstand it what would otherwise be torture to any other laptop. We dropped the laptop a number of times while the laptop was ON and with applications running in the background and we still didn't face any problem. We even dropped the laptop when the lid was open and it survived the fall without any problem. That should summarize the shockproof feature of the laptop. We might just upload the video showing the same in a day or two. Watch this space again next week. As for the waterproof feature, we spilt a glass of water on the laptop and all we had to do was tilt the laptop and all the water just drained out. I think that explains well that the laptop is water and shock proof.

This rugged laptop has a 1.73 GHz processor, these days only the low end entry level laptops include this sort of a configuration. Even though this laptop's concept revolves around ruggedness, it still requires bundling performance under its hood. The performance of this laptop is just average for the configuration and very low for the price. You will be able to work with standard word-processing and a few more applications. This laptop can't be taxed with demanding games or demanding applications. The video memory is shared from the 512 MB stick and with the Intel 915 GM chipset so it's never going to work wonders. That said and done, it will do all the basics in whichever environment you literally throw it into.

Battery Life
The battery bundled along with the laptop is a 9 cell Li-Ion. The battery claims to deliver 5 hours of backup time. The laptop with its low processing power kept the juices of the battery flowing for 4 hours easily. This was a result under standard test conditions. The battery does a good job and being 9-cell with just that much of processing power it was expected.