How tough do you want it?

Feb 22 2008 By Peter Jenkinson

From extreme heat to deep water, these titans of technology can resist almost any force

If you are one of the many people who is a little heavy-handed with their gadgetry then please read on.

You might be one of a growing legion of workers who never spend much time in an office and take your technology on the road rather a lot - where, of course, it is much more likely to come a cropper.

If your daily grind is a little more action-packed or outdoorsy than the average office worker's, then you might need to arm yourself with one or more of these hi-tech gadgets that don't disintegrate at the slightest knock.

Builders' mate

Jcb Handset - £149.95 at www.phones4u.co.uk This tough nut is shock resistant, dust resistant, water resistant and also drop resistant, pretty much the most resilient handset available to mere mortals.

It also has a glare and scratch resistant screen and the technology inside means conversations can be heard in high noise environments. We've seen it driven over and dropped into cement!

Solid snapper

Olympus Mju 790 SW - £200 at www.jessops.com Afeature-filled digital camera with 7.1 megapixels, a 3x optical zoom and over 20 separate scene modes putting itself right among any other in its class. Setting it apart, however, is that it can hit concrete and bounce from 1.5 metres up, and is waterproof to three metres.

Musical might

Roberts Radio rugged - £89.95 from www.homevisionuk.com

This machine is ideal for outdoor FM output with its seven watt speaker belting out enough noise for the noisiest of sites. With an apparently bombproof casing, this has survived a drop from a second floor window and it's also dust and splash-proof.

Style and substance

Samsung Solid - from free on contract at www.o2.co.uk

This Samsung can withstand a bit of a battering having built-in anti-shock and is also water and dust resistant.

An SOS dialing feature is a clever inclusion - it sends an alert message to a nominated person if the volume button is pressed three times in quick succession. Once the alert is sent, the next call to come in is automatically answered.

Brains and brawn

Panasonic CF 52 - £1,397.08 from www.laptopshop.com Not only built like a tank to withstand even the most ferocious of board meetings, this goanywhere road warrior computing machine is very well specced too.

A160 GB shock mounted hard drive, Bluetooth, WiFi and a massive 4GB of RAM give it the edge over plenty of competitors in the brains department.

Save the data

SentrySafe storage drive - £160 at www.sentrysafe.com

The digital hard disk can withstand immersion in water but its real trick lies in the fact that it will save all your data even after being exposed to temperatures of up to 850 degrees Celsius. Boasting a 160GB memory, it is perhaps the best place to keep all your data.