Acer’s new rugged laptop has a water-repelling fan inside it

Acer has released Enduro, a new line of laptops and tablets designed to be used outdoors. The company claims the products can survive drops, extreme temperatures, and water exposure, while remaining portable enough to cart around.

The most interesting model in the line and the only one with a price and release date at this time is the Enduro N3. The N3 will be available in North America in August starting at $899. It will also be on sale in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia in June for $999.

Photo: Acer

Acer says that the N3 is intended for workers who rotate between multiple locations, including architects and event planners. At 14 inches wide, 4.37 pounds, and 0.98 inches thick, the N3 isn’t the lightest notebook out there, but it should still be easy to carry around.

The N3 has achieved MIL-STD 810G and IP53 certifications. The former guarantees durability from incidents like shocks, drops, and vibrations. The latter means it can withstand certain quantities of dust and spraying water. The laptop also includes what Acer calls an Aquafan, which repels water from all angles from inside the laptop.

“With an increasingly modern workforce, more and more mobile devices are being deployed in the field where they are subject to harsher handling,” said Andrew Chuang, Acer’s general manager of rugged computing, in a statement. “Enduro, our new line of rugged notebooks and tablets, was created to provide our customers with the durability and performance that gets the job done.”

In Acer’s press conference today, company testers stuck an Enduro model in a shower and demonstrated afterward that it was still fully functional (and the keyboard remained backlit).

Specs-wise, you can get up to a 10th Gen Core i7, 32GB of RAM (DDR4), and 512GB of storage. There’s an optional Nvidia MX230 GPU as well. An MX230 is a very entry-level GPU that we wouldn’t expect to be a great option for gaming or creative work. So while we haven’t tested this laptop yet, it’s not likely that the GPU configuration is worth extra money.

Photo: Acer

The laptop also comes with a number of security tools, including Acer’s Enduro Management Suite (AEMS), a system that helps IT workers better manage devices across their company. You can use it to do things like remotely enable and disable access to ports and cameras, monitor system hardware and software, and remotely push software like BIOS changes or Windows updates to everyone.

Acer also announced the Enduro N7 laptop, though there’s no price or release date yet. The N7 has two batteries to handle long stretches of use, one of which is hot-swappable for up to 10 hours on a charge. It also has a fingerprint sensor. It doesn’t have the latest processors, though; it comes with an 8th Gen Intel Core i5-8250U.

The Enduro lineup also includes two 10-inch Windows tablets, including the Enduro T5, which also has a swappable 10-hour battery and a 7th Gen Intel Core m3 processor, and the Enduro T1, which has an optional portfolio keyboard and Intel Celeron processor. There’s an eight-inch version of the Enduro T1 as well. Acer claims you can use both while wearing gloves.