Built to last

Christmas time always seems to bring out the techno-head in me, so it is with a healthy suspicion when I say that for no particular reason, I decided today I would write a blog entry about Toughbooks. I may as well have chosen to write one about Siberian snow leopards. But I've spent the past year working with the damned things and for all their interminable bloody quirks, the things have grown on me, when I'm not curtailing my urge to put the manufacturer claims to the test in the most spectacular way possible and hurl them into the nearest solid surface or Atlantic maelstrom at warp factor 5. I like their old-fashioned quality. They're solidly built and well made, which I guess is appropriate and a real breath of fresh air when every other notebook and/or/ prosumer product in general these days is crappy plastic or some substitute thereof, cooked up in a chemical vat somewhere next door to the WMD factory. And they incorporate all the best elements of the wave of trendy tablety-stylusey computing-type thingy consumer devices that have hit the shelves in recent years. I don't think I would be making too outlandish a statement to say that they basically channel the spirit of the mouse-bot from Star Wars in notebook form. I won't use the word cute. That would be committing political suicide. But anyway, hopefully you get what I'm on about. I'm really not sure I do, so some help might be appreciated in this department. 

This in conjunction with the venerable Lumix dynasty of compact cameras convinces me that Panasonic are quite capable of making some good stuff and quite possibly one of the key players that will cause DSLR's to become a thing of the past for the enthusiast or hobbyist in the conceivable future. I splashed out for a Canon 550D approx. 7 months ago (just before the 600D landed and caused the price to drop, grr) and now kind of wish I hadn't – the range of compact cameras that are on par with DSLRs in terms of image quality is steadily increasing every time I turn my head to look, like some kind of aggressive mutant algae on the colourfully exaggerated mural of my perceptions of the camera market.

Funny how neither of the invincible heavyweight duo (Cannikon)'s offerings in this area have caught my eye quite as readily. Powershot and Coolpix are names that are known to me, but they just don't have the same up-there or trendy connotations of something like a Lumix, Olympus EP-series or a Finepix X100 (drools) Which reminds me... Anyone want to trade? Kiss X4 plus two lenses, Tamron 17-50 & Canon 50mm 1.8, both with hoods & 52mm polarising filter for the latter. Chuck Fujifilm's second-to-latest offering, duly mentioned above in my direction and I'll consider. No, I'm not talking about the X10. None of that popcorn-snack-sized Roman rubbish. (Disclaimer: Above offer may not actually be propositioned in seriousness and may possibly be the result of the author talking glibly out of his ass, as usual)

I do digress, don't I? I may have to amend my initial statement about this blog post being about Toughbooks, because as it turns out, it's really not. I would have bored you all senseless if it were, anyway, because no-one's heard of the damn things who doesn't shoot terrorists or chase dinosaurs for a living. But I suppose there is a common thread here, and it goes something like this: Build quality is a drawcard for the lay consumer as well as the professional, and when you mix quality build with antique retro aesthetics, more often than not you get something really rather nice. My 550D is not really built for outdoor shooting. I know the 5D Mark II (now there's something I really would trade my entire camera kit and quite possibly a substantial number of other valuable things in my possession for as well) has that beautifully constructed magnesium-alloy body and all the other trappings of professional ruggedness much like the 1D Mark IV, the Nikon D700, D3s or whatever else have you. Whenever it starts raining, I run for the nearest solid object between me and the man upstairs taking a leak. I guess it's not all about the camera body, there's no way you can keep an expensive lens swaddled in cotton wool forever, and if you're going to be shooting in downpour or thunderstorms or lava flows or biblical apocalypses you would probably be best off throwing in your lot with the Canon camp and dropping multiple weeks' worth of pay checks on an L lens that is specifically weather-sealed. But I like things that are metal or alloy or wood or solid fibreglass, things that seem to be well-made, things that seem to come from the real world that you can picture some old guy sitting in a room spending hours polishing and buffing to the extent that he can look in the front panel and see his own reflection and remember that he forgot to put his monocle on that morning and shrivel up in embarrassment.

It's not just about the functional properties of the build. When you own an item that you perceive to be quality, you are inclined to look after it better, you anticipate the results it delivers with a more positive outlook. There is a definite market out there for lay-level consumers who like products that affect an air of quality construction, whether or not they actually are, or whether they have any idea of the technical intricacies that define it as well-made or otherwise. I definitely bloody don't. The Leica M9 could be stuffed with newspaper and old Cheezels inside and I wouldn't have a clue.

As a side note, I'm wondering if this has anything to do with an infusion of the steampunk aesthetic popularised in recent films like Sucker Punch or the Bioshock franchise? The technology in those textual worlds have a common, definite sense of the internal workings of devices being made transparent. You can see all their gears and knobs and levers going like the inventors were using the Incredible Machine as their prototype simulator. Mousetrap hits see-saw which strikes match which lights rocket fuse which blows hole in wall causing water to flood through and power turbine. You might not get exactly the same effect with a Cf-18 Toughbook or a Fujifilm X100, but you still get the undeniable impression that it was made using real materials not mined on the Moon, it has a real weight and substance to it. It's part of the built environment, it will last when your 50mm 1.8s or school-lunchbox notebooks are biting the carpet.

Oh and Digitalrev fixed their site! This is worth celebrating. I am impressed mucho.