Like all modern Android tablets, the CT7 has capacitive multi-touch for the same intuitive, effortless user interface experience as consumer tablets.

The LCD uses IPS (In Plane Switching) technology for a superior image and perfect viewing angles from all directions, and it's all protected by Corning Gorilla Glass.

There's a gigabyte of RAM and 16GB of Flash for storage. If that seems modest in an era of 128GB iPhones and iPads, the amount of built-in storage hardly matters if the device can use expansion cards, which the CT7 does. So Cedar CT7 users have the built-in 16GB of storage plus up to 64 additional gigs of space through its user-accessible (and well-sealed) micro SDHC card slot on top of the tablet.

There is an 8mp documentation autofocus camera with LED flash on the backside, and a 2.0mp vidcam in the front. While there's recently been a drive to push the megapixel count by some manufacturers in an effort to differentiate themselves, this pixel count is what Apple uses in its iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, and it compares favorable with most rugged smartphones/handhelds out there.

The Cedar CT7's 25.9 watt-hour Li-Ion battery capacity falls somewhere between the Panasonic Toughpad FZ-B2's 23.2 watt-hours and the iPad Air 2's 27.6 watt-hours. Cedar Tree Technologies claims "all day" operations, with some of the CT7's documentation even claiming "up to 20 hours." Charging is conducted via a standard micro-USB port.

The CT7's display measures 7.0 inches diagonally, which means it visually splits the difference between today's super-size smartphones with their 5.5-inch screens and the "traditional" full-size 10-inch consumer tablets pioneered by the iPad. This being an Android-based tablet, the CT7 uses projected capacitive ("procap") multi-touch with all the elegant, effortless tapping, panning, pinching and zooming the technology affords, but without an active pen for precision work, such as some tablets have.

The use of capacitive touch in industrial/vertical market devices has been a heated topic for discussion, with the primary argument against it being that the technology doesn't (currently) work in the rain or with gloves on.

While that is mostly true, it rains for consumers, too, and that hasn't stopped consumer market capacitive touch smartphones and tablets selling by the hundreds of millions. Our view here is that the elegance and ease of use of capacitive touch make it a technology where the benefits outweigh the limitations, and that goes especially for Android-based devices since Android was developed from the ground up for capacitive touch.

Like almost all modern mobile devices, the CT7 is equipped with a wealth of sensors. These include a G-sensor for motion-dependent apps and functionality, an e-compass, a proximity sensor, and an ambient light sensor to adjust backlight intensity.

On the wireless side there's 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, NFC, integrated GPS, as well as 3G/3.75G cellular radio. Wired communication options include a micro-USB port and a 3.5mm audio jack. There's also a special external module port for as of yet unspecified add-on functionality.

The picture to the right shows the Cedar CT7 from the front and from all four sides. It's a refreshingly elegant design in black and bright orange, with the orange making the tablet easy to see and find. Cedar Tree will likely ship other color accents as well.

Cedar's CT7 is equipped with a good number of ports and controls for a IP67-sealed device.

The right side has a number of physical push buttons: Power, volume up and volume down, and a camera shutter button. On the bottom are the unit's earphone jack and micro-USB port, located underneath a hinged plastic/rubber plug. Positioned side-by-side at the top of the device are the SIM card slot and the micro SD Card slot, both also well-protected underneath a hinged plastic/rubber plug.

The front of the Cedar CT7 has the display which, as is usually the case with capacitive touch devices, has surface glass that extends well past the actual LCD screen perimeter. Beneath the display are three controls, a physical Home key flanked by a physical Menu key on the left and a physical Back key on the right. That's a bit different from the usual three standard Android buttons/touch areas (Back, Home, and Multitask), and the "Menu" Android button officially vanished with version 4.0. We liked the physical buttons, as they work under any and all environmental conditions. We wish, though, that they had color markings or a backlight. As is, the faint black embossing is often hard to see.

Not so with rugged tablet where form mostly still follows function, mandating accommodations for ruggedness criteria: making room for expansion and configuration options, allowing for mandatory connectivity, and paying attention to ergonomics (where a slippery slivery slab is just about the worst possible design). And since tools for the job must be easy to see and find, they don't all have to be black and chrome.

And all that is why the Cedar CT7 is refreshingly interesting and colorful. It's made of bright orange polycarbonate plastic and plenty of rubberized black overmolding for protection. All four corners are also integrated bumpers that protect the tablet. The rubberized bezel is raised just enough to provide a bit of extra protection for the display, but not enough to have your fingers bump into it while operating the tablet. And since the bezel doesn't have to be super-hyper-ultra slim, there's enough room for control lights, camera, and buttons. The extra thickness of the CT7's sturdy design allows not only for physical ports and slots, but also for actual protective port covers to keep dust and liquids out.

As for what all that means for a tablet's construction and ease of repair and maintenance, those who occasionally stop by ifixit.com know that modern iPads and such are virtually impossible to open and repair. The CT7 presents no such issues. Below is what things look like inside.

Cedar's cleverly designed orange CT7 consists of two halves secured together with a dozen Torx T6 screws. Once these are out, the two halves can be gently pried apart by carefully undoing four retainer snaps on each side of the tablet. A soft prying tool is needed, rather than a metal screw driver, so as not to damage those clasps. Once all are open, an additional task awaits, and that's gently disconnecting the wires connecting the stereo speakers, the microphone, and the combined Bluetooth and WiFi antenna. All three are very thin and could easily break if manhandled during disassembly or service.

Once all that is done, we can examine the unit's two sturdy orange plastic halves. The sealing between them is a tongue-and-groove affair, with a black replaceable continuous rubber seal inside the groove around the perimeter of the top half of the tablet. The tongue part of the bottom half presses into it, forming a watertight seal.

There are interface openings on each short side in the bottom half of the housing. These rely on their protective covers to keep out dust and liquids. So they must be very securely in place before any use out there in the field where the unit may get rained or splashed on.

Once fully apart, you can see the internal rechargeable 25.9 watt-hour (3.7 Volt, 7,000 mAH) Li-Polymer battery. While the battery is not accessible from the outside without opening up the device, it looks like it is fairly easy to replace; just pry it loose from the adhesive that secures it to the metal frame, disconnect the 7-lead plug, and put in a replacement battery. True, it's not as convenient as just opening a battery compartment cover and popping in a freshly charged battery, but that goes for hundreds of millions of consumer tablets and smartphones as well. And there's definitely a benefit to not having to worry about a large battery compartment cover that might leak or open by accident.

In terms of overall construction, the CT7's LCD display and motherboard are mounted on opposite sides of an internal steel frame. The frame assembly is then secured to the front half of the (what looks like PC+/ABS) housing via a number of small Philips head screws.

The battery and the motherboard roughly split the available internal real estate 40/60. The board has edge-mount I/O on the three sides that butt against the exterior. On the plus side, edge-mount designs mean fewer individual parts than designs with multiple daughterboards; on the minus side, daughterboards offer easier customization.

Virtually all electronics on the motherboard are covered by perforated metal shielding, so we can't report on componentry used. What is visible is a number of antennae. These must be near the perimeter of the device to be effective, and so the Bluetooth, WiFi and NFC antennae are attached to the plastic bottom part of the housing, whereas the GSM/WCDMA and GPS antennae are located in the topside left and right corners.

The image compilation below shows some inside details of the Cedar CT7. On the left you can see the replaceable rubber seal tucked inside its groove, in the middle the SIM and micro-SD card slots on top of the device, and on the right the tiny camera and flash assembly.

As far as resolution goes, the CT7 offers 1280 x 800 pixel. That is not quite "retina" tablet class, but 216 dpi is still very sharp and actually very close to the 13.3-inch Apple MacBook Pro "Retina" that offers 227 dpi. It's also the exact same as the Google Nexus 7 and the 7-inch Amazon Kindle Fire HD, and those are tablets with very sharp displays.

The pictures below show a comparison between the Cedar CT7 and a Google Nexus 7 outdoors, both at maximum brightness. The Nexus 7 display is plenty bright though there's no official rating (we've seen figures as low as 350 nits and as high as 550 nits). The CT7 specs don't include a nits rating, but under most conditions, it looks about as bright as the Nexus 7. Both displays are glossy, so there are reflections outdoors. Most smartphone and tablet users have learned to live with that (for now).

The picture below shows the two devices from the left and the right. Viewing a device from an angle may reveal color shifts in certain types of LCDs, but neither device suffers from that. The screen image remains perfectly viewable and is unchanged from any angle. However, we did notice a slight diminishing in brightness of the CT7 display when viewed from an angle. That's likely due to the fairly thick glass and protective surface shield.

One slight weakness of the display is that in darker lighting conditions, the black background becomes a bit luminescent rather than staying all black. No big deal, but noticeable.

Capacitive multi-touch works as everyone expects from a handheld these days — quickly and effortlessly. As we had already noticed in the company's CT4 rugged smartphone, the Cedar CT7's touch controller is somewhat more sensitive than that in most earlier capacitive touch devices. That means it can work when wearing certain types of thin gloves. The device doesn't come with a stylus and Cedar doesn't offer an optional capacitive pen. Any third party capacitive pen will work, though those generic pens with their broad tips don't offer much more accuracy than the tip of a finger. It's not that important anyway as Android was specifically developed for capacitive multi-touch with a finger.

Among the most consistently hyped consumer smartphone and tablet features is the total number of apps, and how easily users can download them. Apple has its massive App Store. Android users have the official Google Play store, as well as third party alternates such as the Amazon Appstore for Android, Slide ME, and several others. What this means is that there is absolutely no shortage of easily accessible software.

An interesting issue facing Android in industrial and enterprise markets is that many businesses do not want their workforce download apps into devices used for work. What are the answers to this potential problem?

One approach is to use Android AOSP, which stands for Android Open Source Project, and is an open-source software stack and project, led by Google itself. AOSP does not allow use of the Google Play store and some of the major Google apps, althought it does still have access to alternate app stores.

Another possibility is using something like 42Gears.com's SureLock. SureLock replaces the Android desktop and allows control of applications that are available to users. It can even be configured to run in "kiosk mode" with just a single application that is always active. This way, systems integrators or IT personnel can configure units for specific use and applications, eliminating the temptation that comes with a full load of consumer apps.

The CT7 tablet Cedar Tree Communications sent us for evaluation came not only with a basic selection of useful apps, but also with the official Google Play store. Google does make it possible to customize the look and feel of an Android device (and Cedar did add their corporate logo as shown on the right), and organizations can publish their own Android apps or officially-sanctioned apps privately to a dedicated company-owned channel on Google Play.

The images below are screen shots of a variety of apps that came preloaded on the Cedar CT7 and apps that we downloaded from Google Play, just like a Cedar customer might personalize his or her own device.

The first image below shows Skype (left), the Android version of USA Today for news (middle) and then Netflix, three of the apps that he have on all of our personal Android devices.

One of the reasons why consumers have accepted ever larger displays on their smartphones despite the increasing bulkiness that comes with all that display real estate is that web browsing is so much more pleasant on a larger display. The CT7's display is considerably larger yet than that of any current smartphone, and that makes browsing more pleasant yet.

7.0 inches diagonal is large enough for most browsing, though in everyday use it's still amazing how different browsing is on different screen sizes. Doing it on the CT7 is far more satisfying than browsing even on the large iPhone 6 Plus with its 5.5-inch screen, but compared to a standard iPad it's still small. Most CT7 users will do browsing on their tablet, and the CT7 handles it well. Pinching and zooming are quick enough and the multi-touch user interface is pleasant and quite fluid. The keys on the onscreen keyboard are large enough, even if used in portrait mode, and even those with larger fingers will hardly need the landscape mode for typing URLs and such.

While there are a number of office suites available for Android, enterprise and business users often insist on Microsoft Office. An Office 365 client has been available for Android for a while, but it used to require a Office 365 subscription to edit documents and store them in the cloud. As of November 2014 that's no longer the case. Office can be downloaded and used for free on mobile devices. Microsoft Office for Android is a remarkably complete implementation of the full Office 365, and it's very nicely adapted for use on a touch screen. Below are the Office Welcome screen and a look at both an Excel and a Word template.

Next on the list of our downloads from Google Play was Google Earth. The below sequence of screen shots shows a variety of Google Earth map, Street View, modeling and 3D features. It's just absolutely amazing that all this is freely available, and it is of tremendous use and application for tablets used in the field and on the job.

Below: a quick look at the handy calendar app for scheduling jobs, events and meetings (left); a look at the information from one of the many downloadable GPS applications and the wealth of information they provide (middle); and then Microsoft's OneDrive that allows quick and easy access from all of our devices to images, PDFs, and documents stored on the OneDrive cloud.

This being a review of the Cedar CT7 tablet and not of Android and Android apps, we'll stop here with describing and showing all the cool things you can do with Cedar's affordable, rugged CT7. But before we close this section, a quick reference to some data capture and entry methods available to CT7 users. Voice recorders are available, of course (left). There are any number of note taking apps (middle). And for those who like to draw and doodle, there are numerous great apps for sketches and handwritten notes (right). The latter was one instance where a bit more CPU clock speed would have come in handy.

The CT7 platform does not include a dedicated scanner. If scanning is occasionally needed, the CT7 camera is plenty good enough to work with scanner apps of all sorts available from Google Play.

If that's still not enough, and we're being wise guys here, there's always the old EO880 with its 9.5-inch screen, dedicated handset, and external antenna. Yes, that's what Go Corporation and later AT&T saw as the future of communication back in the mid-1990s.

As is the case with most modern smartphones, the Cedar CT7 has neither traditional physical phone answer or hangup buttons, nor a physical keyboard. Everything is touchscreen operated. The picture to the right above shows the CT7's phone app home screen as well as the device's single SIM slot (the larger one of the two).

In general, our experience with cameras integrated into rugged vertical market tablets has been underwhelming, with even the better ones lagging far behind what's available in dedicated point & shoots and consumer smartphones. When we reviewed Cedar's smaller CT4 rugged smartphone we found its rear-facing documentation camera to be very good and close in quality to pictures taken with the iPhone 6 Plus. In our testing, the Cedar CT7 camera wasn't at that level, displaying significantly more compression and artifacting, even though the file sizes were larger than those from the CT4's camera.

The screen snaps below show some of the camera settings screens, and what it looks like in picture-taking mode.

The user interface is not as elaborate as on the Cedar CT4, with 10 levels of saturation and contrast, six levels of sharpness, picture size from CIF up to 8 megapixel, picture quality at various levels of JPEG compression, five focus modes, seven color effects, +/-2EV exposure control, three flash modes, and five white balance settings. However, the CT7 doesn't have the CT4's scene settings, face detection, self-timer, continuous shot modes, or HDR capturing. The designers of these two devices seemed to have decided that phone users, even those using a rugged phone, want all those extra camera features, but that it isn't nearly as important in a tablet.

Likewise, the wealth of onboard editing features the CT4 has is missing on the CT7. You can, however, still directly send images to messaging, email, Skype, OneDrive, Facebook or whatever other social media apps you have on the device. And they can also be converted to PDF.

The pictures below were shot with the Cedar CT7 in 8mp mode. Click on the image to bring up a full-size version.

Video, likewise, was not at the same level as on the CT4. Maximum recording mode is 720p (1280 x 720 pixel), but the camera often fell behind at that resolution, with significant pixelization when moving quickly. It is still useful but, unlike the video on the CT4, not close to current smartphone video capability.

Overall, the Cedar CT7 cameras are much better than what we've seen from even high-end rugged tablets from just two or three years ago. But for most applications they will not replace a dedicated camera or even a modern smartphone (or a Cedar CT4!).

Having used a CT7 tablet for several weeks, we're very confident that the device will hold up well in the field, even under tough conditions. Its basic structure and design are very sturdy, its sealing is impeccable (but make certain all protective plugs are firmly in place), and it appears that Gorilla Glass protects the display, so all that's missing are some official test results.

Summary: Cedar Tree Technologies CT7 rugged tablet computer