Hmmm... Recent laptop offerings have improved in this (protection of the screen against non-lateral forces). Have you ever seen a 'coffin-locker'? It's a rack where you stow all your stuff in compartments underneath it. Mine was packed to the point of my having to use my body weight to secure the lock, and my laptop was always kept in there. (Just imagine how much pressure was on it for a prolonged period of time when I slept in there!) I've had two Toshiba Satellites and they both held up extremely well with the abuses that is ship-board life in the US Navy.
The only thing that really worries me is the sand. Sand will fuck up anything - even ruggedized laptops if given enough time or the right opportunity.
If it's just really dusty out there, then I suggest just clearing out the ventilation ports with a can-of-air on a weekly basis. Also before buying, check to see if someone makes a keyboard cover for that particular laptop - that will go a long ways to keeping nastiness about of your keys.
Finally, if you're honestly on a budget, buy something with an AMD chipset. They may not be as good as Intel (for the moment) but you do get a decent bang for your buck - certainly enough to play COX. I've seen AMD Toshiba Satellites going for as low as $350 at a Walmart.
My current machine is a Toshiba Satellite A665D-series laptop. It's AMD and cost me $800 at the Navy Exchange. It plays Portal 2 with all the bells and whistles at a pretty nice frame rate. However, in order to support the graphics the battery will only last an hour. Power saving features can make it sip - about two hours for video playback and heavy wi-fi downloading; four hours for less demanding tasks. The display is pretty, the sound is nice, and it has a full size keyboard with a numerical keypad. 3 USB ports, 1 USB/eSATA port, 1 HDMI port, 1 VGA port, 2 3.5mm RCA jacks (mic, headphone). Headphone jack is also 3.5mm digital fiber-optical output for digital surround sound systems.
Nice little bonus: it has an accelerometer installed. The moment it senses dangerous movement it parks the heads of your hard drive, thus ensuring maximum life of your HDD and protection of your data. Oh, and it's not 'shiney' like a lot of these other laptops. You know the ones - the display model looks all nice and everything, but after five hours its all smudged with finger prints. Mine is tastefully textured to prevent that.
It's handled life on a USN ship, Japanese rail commuting, air travel, unplanned flights, and my brothers - all with nary a complaint.
I can honestly say that while it's not the best machine out there, I certainly appreciate it.
The only thing that really worries me is the sand. Sand will fuck up anything - even ruggedized laptops if given enough time or the right opportunity.
If it's just really dusty out there, then I suggest just clearing out the ventilation ports with a can-of-air on a weekly basis. Also before buying, check to see if someone makes a keyboard cover for that particular laptop - that will go a long ways to keeping nastiness about of your keys.
Finally, if you're honestly on a budget, buy something with an AMD chipset. They may not be as good as Intel (for the moment) but you do get a decent bang for your buck - certainly enough to play COX. I've seen AMD Toshiba Satellites going for as low as $350 at a Walmart.
My current machine is a Toshiba Satellite A665D-series laptop. It's AMD and cost me $800 at the Navy Exchange. It plays Portal 2 with all the bells and whistles at a pretty nice frame rate. However, in order to support the graphics the battery will only last an hour. Power saving features can make it sip - about two hours for video playback and heavy wi-fi downloading; four hours for less demanding tasks. The display is pretty, the sound is nice, and it has a full size keyboard with a numerical keypad. 3 USB ports, 1 USB/eSATA port, 1 HDMI port, 1 VGA port, 2 3.5mm RCA jacks (mic, headphone). Headphone jack is also 3.5mm digital fiber-optical output for digital surround sound systems.
Nice little bonus: it has an accelerometer installed. The moment it senses dangerous movement it parks the heads of your hard drive, thus ensuring maximum life of your HDD and protection of your data. Oh, and it's not 'shiney' like a lot of these other laptops. You know the ones - the display model looks all nice and everything, but after five hours its all smudged with finger prints. Mine is tastefully textured to prevent that.
It's handled life on a USN ship, Japanese rail commuting, air travel, unplanned flights, and my brothers - all with nary a complaint.
I can honestly say that while it's not the best machine out there, I certainly appreciate it.