Black Diamond´s Rugged UMPC

A new UMPC is about to be released by Black Diamonds, this time a rugged UMPC prepared with all the specifications required by the army: shock, vibration, dust, moisture, and extreme temperatures.

According to ABC News, Switchback PC - this is the name for this UMPC- has a built-in keyboard. Black Diamond is calling it a condensed QWERTY keyboard, similar to the one found on the latest BlackBerries. It's basically a thumb board with two letters on each key, and it learns your typing habits as you go.

The screen is a sunlight viewable display measuring at 5.6 inches and sporting a 1024-by-600 resolution. Other impressive features include built-in GPS, Bluetooth, and WLAN. The hard drive and batteries are hot swappable. And Black Diamond has something called a User-Defined Module which attaches to the back of the unit and lets you define your hardware needs. You have a wealth of modules to choose from, such as modules for extra USB ports, high definition audio outputs, terrestrial radios, barcode scanners, digital cameras, breathalyzer, joystick controls, and the list goes on.

This UMPC will use a 1GHz Celeron M processor and 1 GB of RAM. So far the price is unknown but one thing is for sure, this is not going to be a cheap one.