The somewhat lighter build also means that though it's still a large and substantial machine, it won't weigh you down more than necessary: The S400 measures 13.7 x 10.15 inches, is just under two inches thick, and weighs just under seven pounds. To put it in perspective, that's about the footprint of a 15-inch MacBook Pro. The S400 has a 14-inch LCD display with a wide-format 16:9 aspect ratio and WXGA 1366 x 768 pixel resolution.

What sets the S400 apart from a standard notebook is that it's clearly built tough enough to be used outdoors and on the job. The display is much brighter than what you'd find on a standard notebook. There's an integrated handle to carry the device without the need to bring along a bag for it as well. There's a touch screen because that often works well with field applications. All of the ports have protective covers because it can get dusty and wet out there. And everything is sturdy enough to absorb the occasional bump or blow. If the S400 were a vehicle it'd be an offroad-capable SUV, more able to take a beating out there, but not as extreme (or expensive) as a military Humvee.

A semi-rugged notebook in this class is also expected to have enough performance to run almost any application well, a display bright enough to be used out in the sun, cover all the bases in wireless communication, have enough onboard connectivity to hook up to almost anything, and there must also be a full-size keyboard to make typing bearable in the field. The Getac S400 delivers in all these areas.

Before I go much farther, I should also mention that while the Getac S400 is definitely a tough machine that can take a beating, it is not designed to be waterproof. Getac calls it "water resistant," but that really just means it can handle a spill onto its keyboard and perhaps a bit of rain. And the protective doors also keep water at bay. But the S400 is not a sealed machine. There are grills and other openings to the inside through which water can get in, and that's why the machine does not carry an IP rating for liquids.

On the bottom of the S400 are two removable ABS+PC plastic covers. Beneath one of them, a vented one, are the unit's two SODIMM memory module slots, populated in our eval unit a single two 4GB DDR3L 1,600MHz SODIMM. Beneath the other sits the separate shock-mount hard drive caddy. To gain full access to the inside of the unit, you need to remove the entire plastic bottom cover. It is secured with about 20 Philips screws, then comes off easy. Since the S400 is not a sealed machine, there is no seal between the housing and its bottom cover. The picture below shows the Getac S400 with its bottom plate removed.

The motherboard measures about 13 x 5.7 inches and sits underneath the keyboard. There does not appear to be a metal frame or chassis; instead, everything is mounted onto the very sturdy "KryptoShell" plastic case. Almost all of the unit's external interface ports are edge-mounted onto the motherboard. There are also a number of subsidiary boards. The largest one had connectors for the hard disk, as well as two USB 3.0 and an eSATA port. Overall, the motherboard and interior circuitry is very clean, very solid, and very well laid out. There are no fixes, and everything is properly secured. Very impressive is also the amount of detail on the inside of the case: there are even guides for wires!

The most noticeable part of the motherboard is its copper thermal management system. A small copper heat spreader sits on top of the Core i5 processor. A copper heat pipe then removes heat from the CPU to the fan assembly. Despite the relatively high 37-watt thermal design power of the Core i5-4210M processor, the system apparently can make due without an additional heat sink in the form of a magnesium backplate (as the B300 has). There is also no additional heat piping to the chipset or other chips. The fan does it all. And in a testimony how far Intel has come with thermal management, the Core i5-4210M chip can make do with one heat pipe whereas an earlier generation S400 we tested in 2010 needed two heat pipes to handle the heat generated by its 35 watt Core i5-520M. This for a semi-rugged design advanced thermal management means that, according to Getac, the S400 can maintain a very high level of performance even when it gets hot.

The hard disk caddy (see image to the right) is a remarkably intricate affair consisting of a metal outer housing with different types of padding inside, certainly more than enough to keep the 128GB LiteON LAT-128M3S solid state disk in our eval unit safe and sound. Our tester came without the slide-in and easily removable optical drive Getac offers as an option.

The battery is a powerful 10.8 Volt/8,700mAH 94 watt-hour unit with a built-in battery gauge that shows charge status via four bright LED lights upon pressing the button next to it. You can't see the charge meter when the battery is installed in the unit, but it comes in handy when you carry spare batteries around. The battery can be removed if the unit is plugged in, but it is not hot-swappable. Battery technology has also advanced since we last had a Getac S400 in our lab. The battery in the 2014 model has almost 10% more capacity, 94 vs. 86 watts. It's a solid unit, weighing 16.5 ounces all by itself.

As a full-size semi-rugged notebook, the S400 comes with a full complement of ports, all of which are protected either by rubber plugs or hinged doors. The pictures below show the left and the right side of the S400, both with the doors open.

On the left side of the unit (top picture) starting on the left are the fan vent with a garage for the 3.5-inch telescopic resistive stylus and its tether anchor point on top of it. To the right of the vent is an I/O block with audio-out and microphone connectors and an HDMI port. Next to that is a master RF switch that turns all radios off. If it's in on position, individual radios can be software controlled. To the right of that is another I/O block, this one with a SD Card reader, two USB 3.0 ports, and a combination eSATA/USB 2.0 port. Both I/O blocks have plastic protective covers that, once firmly seated, provide good sealing.

On the right side of the computer, again from left to right, is the battery compartment with recessed Smart Card and SIM card slots. The battery compartment has a hinged protective door with two springloaded locking levers. It won't open by accident. Next to that a 34/54mm ExpressCard slot. Underneath the slots is the compartment for an optional optical drive. The S400 comes with a plastic insert for when the ExpressCard card slots is not in use. Neither the slot nor the optical drive have sealing, so this part of the machine is vulnerable to liquids.

Along the backside of the S400 (see picture below) are, from left to right, the power connector and another USB 3.0 port underneath a plastic protective door, a serial RS232 DB9 port under a separate protective door, an RJ45 LAN jack and (possibly) an optional RJ11 modem port under a combined door, an additional cutout for another optional port, a VGA connector for external video, and a Kensington lock slot.

The hinged protective port covers are screwed onto the body of the S400 via two Philips screws each, making replacements very easy should they break.

Below the keyboard is a flush-mounted area area that includes the touchpad, mouse buttons and fingerprint scanner. The touchpad is optimally sized and very responsive. Its work surface is marked by a slightly raised border so that you can always feel where it starts and ends. The two mouse buttons are also properly sized, and they have a slightly rough powdercoat finish that provides just the right amount of grip. The small fingerprint reader is placed between the two mouse buttons.

Our review S400 came with the optional red LED-based backlight that can be activated and toggled through three brightness settings via a function key combination. It's pleasant and clearly illuminates the keys in semi and full darkness.

One slightly distracting thing with this design is that the red illumination bleeds out around the keys. On the other hand, this also helps delineating the keyboard rather than having the labels just float in space.

Above the keyboard are five hardware pushbuttons (see image below) as is the custom with Getac's current lineup of rugged notebooks. From left to right, they are:

• P1 starts the G-Manager
• P2 starts Internet Explorer
• Blackout mode toggle that turns off backlight and all other lights and illuminations
• ECO button for engaging power conservation mode under battery power
• High-Bright button toggles full 800 nit power backlight on and off
• Power

Available S400 CPUs	Intel Core i7	Intel Core i5	Intel Core i5	Intel Core i3
Model	4610M	4310M	4210M	4110M
Cores/Threads	2/4	2/4	2/4	2/4
Base Clock Speed	3.00 GHz	2.70 GHz	2.60 GHz	2.60 GHz
Turbo Speed	3.70 GHz	3.40 GHz	3.30 GHz	No turbo
Thermal Design Power (TDP)	37 watts	37 watts	37 watts	37 watts
Smart Cache	4MB	3MB	3MB	3MB
Integrated graphics	HD Graphics 4600	HD Graphics 4600	HD Graphics 4600	HD Graphics 4600
Graphics base speed	400 MHz	400 MHz	400 MHz	400 MHz
Graphics max speed	1.30 GHz	1.25 GHz	1.15 GHz	1.10 GHz
Intel Flexible Display	Yes	No	No	No
Intel Clear Video	Yes	No	No	No
Intel Trusted Execution	Yes	Yes	No	No
Intel vPro	Yes	Yes	No	No

They went for high performance with four dual processor options from Intel's powerful 4th Generation Core processor lineup, codenamed "Haswell." Customers can select either the Core i3-4110M running at 2.60GHz, the Core i5-4210M (installed in our review unit) running at 2.6GHz and capable of speed bursts up to 3.3GHz, then the slightly more upscale 2.7GHz Core i5-4310M that can reach a turbo speed of 3.4GHz, and the top-end is the 3.0GHz Core i7-4610M that can clock as high as 3.7GHz.

What's interesting here is that all of these chips are dual core/quad thread models with the same 37 watt Thermal Design Power (which is an Intel measure of how much heat the cooling system must be able to dissipate). And all of them use the same integrated Intel HD Graphics 4600. So from that perspective there are no major differences between the chip options.

What does separate the available processor choices — and may be more important than the relatively minor difference in processor and graphics speed — is the number of advanced Intel technologies that may or may not be needed. These may be irrelevant to some customers, but essential to others. To see full spec table for these three CPUs, see here.

Do note, though, that both available processor options are considered "standard voltage," which in Intel speak means that while they generally offer higher performance than "low voltage" and "ultra low voltage" versions, they also generate more heat, which is why the S400 has a fan whereas, for example, the Getac B300, does not.

In order to get a sense of how the S400 performs compared to other Getac models and some competing products, we installed Passmark Software's PerformanceTest 6.1 that runs about 30 tests covering CPU, 2D graphics, 3D graphics, memory, and disk and then computes scores for each category and an overall PassMark score. We also ran our second benchmark suite, CrystalMark. The results are below, and for comparison we added the original Getac S400 we tested in 2011, the new Getac V110 and F110, as well as the economy-priced Gammatech semi-rugged S15H, Dell's 6430 ATG (which has since been replaced with their Latitude 14 Rugged) and the business-oriented Fujitsu Lifebook 733.

What does the substantial performance mean for the S400's battery life? The competition has set the bar pretty high in this class, with Panasonic claiming up to 15 hours for an i5-equipped Toughbook 53 with a long-life battery. That said, Panasonic decided to go with ultra-low voltage processors for the Toughbook 53 whereas Getac uses higher performance standard voltage chips.

As is, the S400's 10.8 Volt, 8,700mAH Li-Ion pack is good for 94 watt-hours, which is at the high end of what is usually available for notebooks.

We tested power draw by running our standard BatteryMon benchmark. With Windows Power Options set to Power Saver, radios off, and the display backlight set to its lowest setting, we saw a minimum of about 8.6 watts and values generally in the low 9 watt range. That's theoretically good for well over ten hours. Turning WiFi on hardly made a difference. Turning backlight up to its very bright maximum increased power draw to about 19.5 watts, still theoretically good for almost five hours of running time. Setting Power Options to High Performance and screen brightness up all the way didn't have a noticeable impact on power draw. Running full-screen 1080p video this way resulted in 21.5 watts, and a theoretical worst-case runtime of about 4.5 hours. What's interesting here is that the S400 we tested in 2011 used over 31 watts when running HD video, and also used more power at Windows Full Power settings. What that means is that the Haswell processor a) has significantly more advanced power management, and b) it can decode HD video on the fly with hardly breaking a sweat.

Getac's own G-Manager utility also includes a Battery status screen and it pretty much confirmed the results we'd seen on BatteryMon. On a full battery, G-Manager showed a minimum draw that was around 9.5 watts, and suggested a remaining run time of 9 hours on 83% battery capacity. Below is a screen capture of the very useful Getac G-Manager utility.

As always, real world mileage will vary. Minimum draw in a test lab is not an accurate predictor of actual battery life (we've seen standard voltage i5/i7 processors draw less than ultra-low-voltage versions). However, between the very good power management of Intel's Haswell processors, Windows' much improved power management, and the Getac S400's extensive power management settings, if the situation requires it, the S400 can run a good long time on a charge. Do keep in mind, though, that power settings do affect clock speed.

Bottomline here is that the new Haswell-powered S400 is significantly more energy efficient than predecessor models. Between that and the powerful battery, this laptop can run well beyond a full shift on a charge. Do note, however, that boosting the backlight to its highest setting greatly increases power draw, so users should keep an eye on that.

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