In today's far more complex world, making everything in one place is, with rare exceptions, no longer feasible. Parts are procured from all sorts of places and assembled in various locations, depending on cost and logistics. This development gave rise to OEMs — Original Equipment Manufacturers — and ODMs — Original Design Manufactures. OEMs make a product per the exact design and specifications of the company that ultimately sells the product with its name on it. ODMs design and manufacture a product entirely by themselves. and then sell the product to companies who put their name and brand on it.

How important are OEMs and ODMs today? Very. Most consumer electronics products today are not actually made by the companies most people think make them. Few who are not industry insiders, for example, have heard of Hon Hai Precision Industry. Better known as Foxconn, Hoi Han had 2017 revenues of US$158 billion. That's more than General Motors, and much more than the annual revenues of IBM, Dell or Hewlett Packard.

Does all of this affect the rugged mobile computer market as well? It does. A large number of rugged handhelds, tablets, laptops and panels are made by OEMs and ODMs, and then sold under the names familiar in rugged computing markets. The relationships between OEMs/ODMs and the final sellers can assume many different forms. On the one side, an OEM may manufacture a product to very precise specifications for one customer only, and that customer has an absolute exclusive. On the other end of the spectrum, an ODM may sell the exact product to many customers who then may only put their brand label on it and nothing more. In between those two extremes are many shades of gray.

So what does all of that have to do with Estone Technology and the MDK-100 hard handle tablet? Well, Estone is both an ODM and an OEM, and one that specializes in making rugged computing products. Estone's current and prospective customers are companies that provide rugged technology to their own end user customers. The rugged computing market is much smaller than the consumer technology market, and Estone is much smaller than Foxconn. But it's essentially the same thing.

Who are Estone's customers? That's companies that have built their own businesses on catering to their own special markets. Estone's customers sell rugged computing equipment to their own customers together with expertise, software, turn-key solutions, service, and consulting arrangements. Estone's customers may be fairly large, well established names in the rugged computing market. Such customers may have precise customization requirements, their own color schemes, and their own brand names. But Estone's customers might also be resellers, large end users, system integrators, and more.

Some of the thoughts that went into the MCA design:

Easy cleaning — Cleanliness and frequent disinfection prevent the spread of disease, so the case a) has to be sealed, b) has to be easy to clean and wipe without any holes and hard-to-reach places where grime might accumulate, and c) the case had to be made of chemical-resistant and perhaps anti-microbial resin.

Ruggedness — Mobility, even with an integrated handle, means the tablet will get dropped at times, and this necessitated strong, rugged construction.

Data collection — The Intel reference design called for an onboard camera for documentation, WiFi and Bluetooth for communication, an RFID reader, as well as an integrated 1D/2D barcode scanner for rapid data capture. While this is common now, it wasn't back in 2005, and the reference design helped popularizing all of those features.

In addition, since MCAs weren't likely be used away from their docks for extended periods of time, battery life should be good, but not come at the expense of a large power pack that would make the device too thick and heavy. And the device would include both touch and digital ink to allow annotations.

While many customers like doing business with one of the major rugged hardware and services brands, for others working with an OEM/ODM like Estone makes more sense. An OEM/ODM offers a cost advantage, OEM/ODM designs are more easily customizable to meet the needs of different customers, including "personalizing" a product with labels, colors, and materials. OEM/ODMs are also more likely to offer variable I/O and support different technologies, standards, and performance envelopes.

So let's look at the Estone MDK-100 hard handle tablet and see how the company went about creating its own version of this smart and functional concept. Below you can see the MDK-100 from the front and from all four sides. Our review unit was the rugged markets version of the tablet with the popular dark-gray/black color scheme.

A challenge tablet designers run into a lot is how to make a tablet that doesn't look like every other tablet. There's only so much one can do with the basic form factor. That's less of a problem with the Intel MCA reference design. True, there is the integrated hard handle, but the basic design is large enough to allow some leeway in making an implementation unique. Estone came up with a clean, elegant design that adds function buttons along the right side of the display, offers ample wired connectivity options, and includes perimeter and corner protection.

The 11 x 10 x 0.87 inch package makes the MDK-100 larger than your typical 10-inch tablet. But this isn't your standard tablet. It is a tool for the job that offers considerably more functionality. While the spec sheet suggests a starting weight of about 2.5 pounds, our fully equipped tester came in at 3.4 pounds, still very manageable for what is a remarkably solid and rugged device.

Another indication that Estone created a true multi-purpose implementation of the original MCA, one that's equally at home out there in the field as it is in an indoor setting, is the careful sealing and protection of all external I/O ports. Below you can see the MDK-100's left (top) and right (bottom) side, with the protective port covers open.

Being in the OEM market, Estone must carefully consider overall performance of their mobile computing product offerings. In addition to the usual size/weight/cost tradeoffs and balancing inherent in any mobile design, OEM customers may have widely differing priorities, ranging from lowest possible cost to highest possible performance. To address that, Estone offers this platform in a lower end (the MD-100) and a higher end (the MDK-100) configuration.

MDK-100 models are available with three different Intel 7th generation "Kaby Lake" Core processors. These are dual core/quad thread designs tuned for lowest possible power consumption but also the ability to operate at much higher performance levels in "turbo boost" for brief periods of time. MD-100 models, on the other hand, offer the choice of two Intel Atom based "Apollo Lake" chips. These are considerably simpler designs, albeit plenty powerful enough for many tasks. The table below shows specifics of the five available processors.

Mass storage is via solid state disk modules using the M.2 interface. Estone offers 128GB up to 1TB configurations, presumably of the SATA/600 interface variety.

Like most modern tablets, the MDK-100 comes with a bevy of sensors. That seems to include ambient light, electronic compass, proximity, and a gyroscope. Not all apps take advantage of all sensors, but their presence comes in handy for custom apps.

All of the above matters in all rugged devices, but what's inside and how things look inside is even more important for OEM products. Why is that? Because many OEM products will go to customers who rebrand them for their particular target markets, or resell them to their own particular customer in a particular field.

This means that OEM products must not only be designed from the ground up to be as flexible as possible, cover as many bases as possible, and allow as many configurations as possible. They must also be as easy and simple to maintain, upgrade or repair.

How does the Estone MDK-100 score in all those areas? Well, opening up the device is easy. It can, however, be a bit hard on the wrist and one needs the right tools. Nothing fancy, but figuring out how to pry out all those dozens of tiny rubber plugs that sit in the screw holes took some doing. The little plugs are brilliant, though: they sit flush and tight, making it impossible for grime to accumulate in the screw holes, and making cleaning/disinfecting the MDK-100 that much easier. Then it's on to undoing several dozen small Philips screws.

After that, separating the two halves of the tablet's polycarbonate housing is a piece of cake. There's only one single wire between the two halves, the one for the speaker, and that disconnects easily. Sealing between the two halves is done with a single, long, replaceable square-profile rubber pressure O-ring type seal that sits in a fairly complex groove. We like for seals to be a contrasting color, but other than that, the overall construction of the MDK-100 impresses with its simplicity.

In terms of construction, the MDK-100 uses polycarbonate front and back halves. The front half actually consists of a polycarbonate bezel with a thick, substantial magnesium chassis screwed onto it. All electronics are securely mounted onto this magnesium chassis on the inside, and the tablet's display on the outside. A strong, high quality solution.

The backside of the MDK-100 is all gray polymer, heavily coffered for extra strength, with black polymer fused onto it along the perimeter. That provides visual distinction and extra protection. The black protective areas have a slightly rubberized feel. While the protective cladding is fused on, the tablet's hinged protective I/O doors are screwed on and replaceable. Each of the doors has a soft foam rubber seal and a locking slider.

The MDK-100's battery fits flush into a compartment on the back of the tablet. The battery is a 11.1V, 3,700mAH rechargeable Li-Polymer design providing 41 watt-hours, more than the Getac RX10 (32 whr) and the Zebra/Xplore L10 (36 whr). An internal 3.25 watt-hour backup battery allows for hot-swapping of the battery.

The inside of the MDK-100 is spacious and uncrowded. The 6-1/2 x 2-3/4 inch motherboard is entirely covered by aluminum shielding that also acts as a heat sink and heat spreader for the CPU and ancillary electronics. I/O is either edge-mounted on the motherboard or it's located on a daughterboard. Separating I/O this way makes it easier for a manufacturer to offer custom configurations for special needs and applications.

The image below shows a look at the battery compartment side of the motherboard. Note the unit's SIM card and micro-SD card slots.

Our unit came with a 1D/2D imager integrated into the side of the tablet at the height of the hard handle. This placement was, for ergonomic reasons, part of Intel's original reference design. The scanner module is a Newland EM3296 640 x 480 pixel CMOS-based scanner/decoder board designed and manufactured by Dutch company Newland EMEA, a subsidiary of Fujian Newland Digital Technology Co., Ltd, to quickly decode even poor quality codes.

The scanner can read Code 128, UCC/EAN-128, AIM-128, EAN-8, EAN-13, ISBN/ISSN, UPC-E, UPC-A, Interleaved 2 of 5, ITF-6, ITF-4, Matrix 2 of 5, Industrial 25, Standard 25, Code 39, Codabar, Code 93, Code 11, Plessey, MSI-Plessey, GS1-DataBar, RSS-14, RSS-Limited, and RSS-Expand 1D barcodes, as well as PDF417, QR Code (QR1/2, Micro), Data Matrix (ECC200,ECC000, 050, 080, 100, 140), Chinese Sensible Code 2D codes. The module supports batch, trigger, sense, and continuous modes.

WiFi and and optional mobile broadband modules sit on the motherboard. Their respective antennae are placed along the perimeter of the tablet for best wireless performance. The daughterboard and all modules and connectors (camera, scanner, pogo pin docking, etc.) are via precision-cut, plasticized ribbon cables. Each is marked "MD100" — along with its purpose. There's nothing generic inside this design. While components and connectors are miniaturized, they are of sufficient size for handling or maintenance, and they are all easily accessible. In an era of convoluted, almost impossible to repair electronics, Estone certainly got it right!

Below are close-ups of some details inside the Estone MDK-100. From left to right: The tablet's backup battery and color-coded wiring. All of these connectors are easy to manipulate, not like some of the tiny stuff found in most of today's consumer electronics. Next a look at the antenna wire guides cast right into the magnesium chassis. Impressive. Then the camera module, and finally a look at the unit's precision cut flat ribben cables. They, too, have their own lanes machined into the magnesium chassis!

The Estone hard handle tablets all have a 10.1-inch capacitive multi-touch IPS display with 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution. That makes 224 pixels per inch — plenty sharp enough for the intended applications. The basic display offers 400 nits luminance, an optional 1,000 nits version is available for outdoor/sunlight use, and Estone can provide screens with anti-glare, anti-reflection, and anti-smudge coatings. Since this is an IPS screen, there are perfect viewing angles and no color or contrast shifts when viewed from any angle.

"Nits" is the commonly used measure for display brightness. Nits is really candela per meter squared, or cd/m2, and that, per Google dictionary, is "the luminous intensity, in a given direction, of a source that emits monochromatic radiation of frequency 540 × 1012 Hz and has a radiant intensity in that direction of 1/683 watt per steradian." (Auuugh!!)

Standard laptops generate about 200 nits. Consumer tablets and smartphones may go as high as 500 and 600 nits. And special purpose rugged laptops can generate as much as 1,500 nits. So the MDK-100 default display's 400 nits is more than a laptop, and roughly the same as that of an iPad Air. That is plenty enough for indoor use in healthcare or general office settings. For outdoor use we'd recommend the optional sunlight-readable display. Our review unit had that, and it is excellent, clocking in at a maximum luminance of 1245 nits in our testing.

The images below provide an idea of what the MDK-100 screen looks compared to an iPad Air 2 under varying conditions.

• Top: The iPads' 415 nits is no match for the much brighter daylight-readable screen of the MDK-100.

• Middle: Even IPS screens tend to appear darker when looked at from narrow angles. The Estone tablet's powerful screen remains very readable.

• Bottom: Like virtually all tablets and smartphones today, the MDK-100 (as well as the iPad) has a glossy screen. That means there can be reflections. When that happens, the MDK-100 screen appears with a white cast, the iPad's with a blue one.

The optional sunlight-readable display in our review unit earned high marks. It is very bright without washing out at maximum brightness. It offers very wide viewing angles from all directions. That is very important. There aren't any contrast shifts or color aberrations when viewing the display from an angle. The caveat, of course, is that leaving the display in maximum brightness will drain the battery considerably more quickly.

With the advent of capacitive multi-touch, the importance of pens became much reduced. But there are still applications where the extra precision of a pen comes in handy. That can be addressed with passive pens. Early passive pens for use with capacitive touch screens had wide tips and weren't very useful. Newer designs have narrower tips, but still don't have the full precision and functionality of an active pen. One problem is that passive pens, styluses, don't have "hovering" — a cursor that shows the exact position of the pen tip on the display without the pen even touching the display.

As is, capacitive multi-touch alone is good enough for many tablet applications. But for deployments where an active pen is needed, Estone offers the EETI eGalax Pen.

The eGalax Pen does need a battery, a tiny AAAA one. There's a garage for the pen on the backside of the MDK-100 handle, and there's a spiral tether for the pen that extends two or even three feet if need be. The pen comes on automatically when it senses the screen. Once the pen is sensed, there's also "palm rejection," i.e. the tablet knows you're using the pen and will ignore finger or palm touch.

The onboard camera app in our review unit could go as high as 8mp stills (2592 x 1944 pixels) and 1920 x 1080 pixel FHD video. For video the camera tops out at 1080p/30fps. The Microsoft Windows Camera app is very limited in its settings and options, offering only time delay, auto/manual focus, and exposure compensation. The cameras can undoubtedly do more, but tapping that potential requires additional imaging software.

The pictures below were shot with the MDK-100 rear camera in 1920 x 1080 mode. Click on the image to bring up a full-size version.

Instead, the MDK-100 makes it clear from the start that you can use it without worries. No screen protector needed, because the screen itself is of chemically hardened cover glass. There's no glossy metal that easily scratches, only plastic that looks as durable as a Tupperware bowl.

By established ruggedness testing standards, just how tough is this tablet? That's a bit more difficult to determine. The MDK-100 carries IP65 sealing where the "6" means it's completely dustproof, and the "5" that it is also protected from low-pressure water jets from all directions. So no worries about a spilling a soda on it or a bit of rain or more.

The device can also handle drops from four feet. That means it can easily survive falling of a desk or a cart. And four feet is also about the distance a tablet falls if it slips out of one's hands while using it in a standing position.

The stated operating temperature range of 32 to 113 degrees Fahrenheit (0 to 45 degrees Celsius) seems conservative. While it won't get colder or hotter than that inside a healthcare setting, outside it's a very different story. And since the black and gray rugged applications version of the MDK-100 will see lots of outdoors, the officially sanctioned operating temperature range should be considerably broader.

Now do look at all the pictures below. That is some of the ruggedness and durability testing gear and instrumentation that Estone Technology uses to test the ruggedness of its mobile computing devices. One gets the impression that the MDK-100 hard handle tablet is a lot tougher than the few specs in the official brochure indicate.

And, in fact, the company's informational materials go into length about its considerable testing. Which includes aging, immunity to power line variation, liquids resistance, battery stress, thermal testing, temperature and humidity (both storage and operating), drop test, package drop, vibration, ESD, and moisture & salinity. List of testing performed on a particular device, of course, depends on the product and its intended purpose. We'd encourage Estone to make the results of all those tests available in its sales and promotional product literature.

Depending on equipment level, the MDK-100 weighs around three pounds, its polymer over magnesium chassis design won't scratch or break, and its 10.1-inch capacitive multi-touch display with excellent viewing angles is crisp and sharp. The very bright optional daylight-viewable display on our review unit allowed easy viewing in sunlight. Thanks to a bridge battery, the 42 watt-hour main battery is hot-swappable.

Estone offers five different Intel processor options, covering a wide range of performance. An integrated industrial-grade scanner does 1D/2D barcode reading. NFC, RFID, GPS, CAC card and fingerprint readers, and mobile broadband are all optionally available. The device is available with up to 1TB of solid state storage (and there is a micro SD card slot in the battery compartment).

The tablet's nternal design is rugged, logical, rational and should be easy to repair/maintain. Layout and organization suggest easy customization. Overall, the Estone MDK-100 is a practical, cost-efficient multi-purpose hard handle tablet platform that can fit into many tablet lineups. -- Conrad H. Blickenstorfer, July 2019

Estone Technology MDK-100 Specs: