M133WK
13.3" Intel® Core™ i5-8265U Ultra Rugged Tablet PC

Ruggedness Winmate describes the M133K tablet as "rugged" and with its tough PC+ABS and magnesium case and overmolded TPR corner protection it certainly looks much tougher than all those ever thinner and ever more fragile consumer tablets. Environmental specs include a fairly wide 14 to 122 degree Fahrenheit operating temperature range (-10 to 50 degrees Centigrade). That's enough to deploy the M133K almost anywhere. The tablet can handle 26 repeated drops from four feet per MIL-STD-810G, 516.6 IV to plywood over concrete. That's relevant because four feet is roughly the height a tablet is held while it's being operated when standing or walking. It's also remarkable for a tablet as large as this, and a testimony to the tablet's solid construction and excellent exterior protection via rubber bumpers. Sealing is at the IP65 level. That means the Winmate M133K is totally protected against dust, and it can also handle low pressure water jets from all directions, albeit with limited ingress permitted. As long as all seals are in good working conditions and the protective door over the I/O block is closed, the M133K should easily survive even a downpour. It wasn't the worse for wear after sitting in our proving ground brook and waterfall for half an hour. The picture to the right shows our evaluation M133K sitting in running water. Do make sure, however, to tightly close all the protective covers before this sort of abuse, and also note that the capacitive touch screen becomes inoperable while water is running over it or when it sits in water. It works in a bit of rain, but only to a certain extent. Winmate also claims successful shock testing in accordance with the methods described in MIL-STD-810G 516.6 Procedure I and vibration testing per MIL-STD-810G Methods 514.6 Procedure I. Overall, there's no doubt that the Winmate M133K is far tougher and far more durable than than any consumer or even enterprise market tablet. It feels solid and substantial, the protective covers are both easy to close and to close, there's nothing to break off, and even the excellent optional stand/handle seems built to last forever. Bottom line: Winmate M133 The Winmate M133 is for those who need a robust, largely invulnerable tablet PC with enough processing power, connectivity, and display real estate to handle complex Microsoft Windows work and applications. Just as Microsoft's Surface Pro and Apple's iPad Pro launched a "professional" class of more powerful tablets with larger displays primarily designed for the enterprise market, Winmate is bringing those benefits to vertical and industrial markets with the M133 platform. Field-ready ruggedness and functionality, of course, do come at the price of larger size and higher weight. Weighing 5.3 pounds and being 1.2 inches thick, the M133K is a substantial piece of equipment, but one that — thanks to good ergonomics and a very clever kickstand/handle — remains surprisingly handy and easy to use. The new M133K model is equipped with an Intel "Kaby Lake" Core CPU that's two generations newer than the one used in the earlier (and still available) M133W versions. In our benchmark testing the new model showed an overall 38% benchmark performance increase over the older one. Despite the higher performance, power draw is roughly the same and sometimes lower than that of the older unit. Winmate claims up to 11 hours battery life from the hot-swappable battery, a number that was confirmed in our testing. The M133K impresses with its large 13.3-inch 1920 x 1080 pixel display that offers a perfect viewing angle from all directions, and shows no annoying color or contrast shifts. The standard 350 nits (we measured 375) is bright enough for most work, and a 600 nits option is available for predominantly outdoors deployments. The capacitive multi-touch display can be optimized for use with gloves, in the rain, or with the supplied narrow-tip stylus. Onboard connectivity includes USB 2.0 and 3.0, HDMI, LAN and serial, all in standard size versions. New is a much appreciated reversible USB Type-C port. The device has optional optional RFID, an industrial-grade integrated 1D/2D imager or Smart Card reader, and also reasonably competent cameras suitable for documentation tasks in a pinch. Thanks to its PC+ABS/die-cast magnesium construction and protective rubber overmoldings, the Winmate M133K is extremely solid and can handle a good deal of abuse. IP65 sealing means users won't have to shy away from rain, and the tablet has a suitably wide operating temperature range. Offering significantly improved performance over its predecessor model, full-shift-plus battery life, remarkable ruggedness, a gratifyingly large and overall excellent hi-res display, the Winmate M133K represents a compelling package for numerous applications that not only require Windows in the field, but also enough performance and screen real estate for professional-grade applications. -- Conrad H. Blickenstorfer, August 2019 There is one thing about the M133K to get used to: in almost all capacitive multi-touch devices, the frontal glass extends over the entire frontal surface of the device, or at least a good way past the perimeter of the actual LCD. The M133K, however, has a raised 1/8-inch bezel right along the LCD perimeter, which can make it difficult to do precise touch operations near the perimeter of the LCD. And the usual procap caveat here: while capacitive multi-touch has become the almost universal standard for smartphones and tablets, legacy Windows with its small check boxes and narrow scrollers was clearly designed for use with a mouse, and even Windows 10 still often presents users with such legacy situations where finger touch isn't quite precise enough. Overall, capacitive multi-touch worked flawlessly on the big M133K, with none of the hesitation that earlier Windows-based hardware often exhibited with procap. And being able to switch between modes and selecting the optimal one for any given environment is much appreciated. Finally, the passive narrow-tip pen and the large display both add to making the M133K pleasant to use, something that in the past was never a given for Windows operation without a mouse. Dual cameras The Winmate M133K has two integrated cameras. The user-facing 2mp camera is for video conferencing, whereas the rear-facing 5mp camera with LED flash can be used for documentation purposes, both stills and video. Cameras integrated into handheld and tablet computers have historically underperformed compared to even low-end dedicated cameras as well as the cameras available in virtually every smartphone. In the last two or three years, likely due to the worldwide proliferation of smartphone photography, the quality of cameras integrated into mobile computers has improved quite a bit. Sometimes enough to eliminate the need of taking along a dedicated camera or smartphone if suitable photo or video documentation is needed on the job. The overall idea of adding cameras to workforce-grade tablets is so that their users can document whatever they are working on without the need for an additional camera. This way, everything is in one system. Having a nice, large tablet screen to view pictures is certainly is a lot more pleasant than the tiny screens on dedicated cameras or even smartphone displays (see below). And collecting all project-related information — work order, status inventory, work performed, images, video — all in one place is certainly attractive. Can the M133K's cameras deliver? For now, the answer remains "possibly."