It’s no secret that I’m a zombie enthusiast–it’s right there at the top of my Twitter profile. So, I tend to see things a bit differently. When tossed the keys to a 2012 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 4×4, many would see a low-tech dinosaur, some would see a vehicle that has been only incrementally updated every year of its 71-year existence, and still others would see the ultimate weekender vehicle for frat boys, bros, and outdoorsy junior execs. A strong contingency of true-blue off-roading fans would see years of history, tradition, and a simple purity in a world where cars get more complex by the minute. I, on the other hand, saw the ultimate vehicle for keeping myself un-undead when society falls.

Think about it. The Wrangler is rugged. It can traverse almost any type of terrain, but it’s still small enough to creep through some fairly tight spots. The simple chassis and power train are easy enough to modify and maintain. And while it’s far from being the thriftiest vehicle that we’ve tested, it’s definitely more economical than many of the larger trucks that boast off-roading cred–which is a good thing, because you’ll probably be scavenging your own fuel after the zombie apocalypse.

Design: Looks like a brick, flies like one too
The Wrangler shows the “two-box” design language at its most simplistic. It looks that way for two reasons.

It’s designed to be simple and rugged. The doors are held on by little more than a pair of simple hinges and a visible wire harness. The forward portion of what Jeep embarrassingly calls the Freedom Top roof pops off with two hand screws and a handful of toggles–great for a bit of extra sun, ventilation, or gaining the high ground when zombie-shooting! If you’d like, two adults can take off the entire hardtop to reveal a functional roll cage with the removal of just under a dozen bolts and a half hour’s time.

Short overhangs give the Wrangler Rubicon unbelievably steep approach and departure angles and the massive ground clearance keeps the Jeep from high-centering over all but the most extreme terrain. Integrated rails on the underside of the vehicle keep drivers from damaging the body if the chassis does come into contact with obstructions, and metal skid plates protect the vehicle’s underbelly from damage.

The front 2 panels of the Wrangler’s 3-piece hard top can be easily removed for open-air motoring.

Things get really interesting when you start customizing the Jeep Wrangler’s body. With the hardtop removed, you can install one of two different soft tops: the Sunrider, which offers full coverage, or the Bikini, for a more open-air setup. The full metal doors, with their power locks and power windows, can be removed in a few minutes for even more openness or replaced with half-doors with manual locks and windows. There’s an assortment of off-road bumpers, winches, auxiliary lights, and more robust spare-tire mounts. No other vehicle that I’ve ever driven is as configurable as the Wrangler.

To my mind, however, the most obvious reason the Jeep Wrangler looks the way it does is because Jeep Wrangler enthusiasts want it to. There’s no real off-roading advantage to the Wrangler’s vertical windshield or squared-off edges. There’s really nothing keeping the Wrangler from adopting a modern aesthetic a la the Range Rover Evoque, but without these rugged elements (the upright grille, the round lights that ape the sealed beam units of old, the chunky wide fenders) the vehicle wouldn’t look like a Wrangler.

Consequently, many of the same design elements that are pros when off-road become cons for daily driving on-road. Jeep’s promotional materials refer to the Wrangler as “refined” and “aerodynamic,” but it’s only either of those things in comparison with, well, older Jeep Wranglers.

The high ride height means that drivers under 6 feet tall will need a running start and a hop to reach the driver’s seat without the optional side step and Mopar Grab Handle (both of which are available at extra cost). The knobby tires and pliable suspension make the vehicle a noisy, bouncy mess on city streets. The boxy aerodynamic profile makes the Wrangler feel squirmy and unstable at highway speeds. A good crosswind at 50-plus mph is a truly terrifying thing, and I could almost feel the Jeep’s body rotating and rocking about as I traversed the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on a windy day.

The Wrangler’s iconic design is a double-edged sword that’s fantastic for off-roading, but compromised for more civilized streets and highways.

I should also note that the Wrangler has a second row of seats, but it only really seats two people. The back seat is nigh-impossible to get into thanks to a smallish door opening and front-row seats that don’t really articulate very much. Perhaps it’s an easier task with the Freedom Top removed, but I doubt it. Thankfully, that rear row does fold and flip forward to increase the rear storage area, which is accessible through the rear, side-hinged hatch.

Performance: A power train that keeps it simple, stupid
The Jeep Wrangler’s power train features everything you need and nothing that you don’t for off-roading, but while it’s basically a low-tech extravaganza, there are a few high-tech touches.

The Wrangler lacks the advanced terrain management profiles of, for example, the Land Rover LR4 or Ford Explorer, but that doesn’t make it any less capable. The Wrangler just does things the old-fashioned way: with a torque-y engine, a simple 4×4 transfer system with user-selectable 2WD, and 4WD low-high ratios, and big knobby tires.

Under the Wrangler’s hood, which is held in place by a pair of rubber latches and flips back to rest on the windshield, is the 3.6-liter Pentastar V-6 engine. This grunty mill outputs 285 horsepower and 260 pound-feet of torque. When combined with the flexible power train, which we’ll discuss shortly, this engine offer lots of low-end grunt. It’s also pretty loud, but only relative to, for example, a Toyota Camry. Frankly, a bit of noise is par for the course when you’re talking about a rough-and-tumble vehicle like the Wrangler. Most importantly, the engine feels bulletproof–and it needs to be because the Wrangler Rubicon can find itself pretty far from your local auto parts store.

Power leaves the engine by way of either a six-speed manual transmission or, as in our tester, a five-speed automatic gearbox before being split between the front and rear axles via a center transfer case. The automatic provided smooth shifts and was generally unobtrusive.

Hide Review

The Dell Latitude E6220 probably isn’t for you, unless you’re a business traveler who needs something more rugged than a MacBook Air, has a nearly infinite budget, and requires TPM or vPro.

I don’t mean to be dismissive, but this admittedly powerful 12.5-inch Dell laptop, while having impressive performance and battery life, tops the charts at a whopping $1,663 starting price for specs that are really no different than you’d find on a laptop that costs half as much. The Latitude E6220 dates from the end of 2011, but even so, it seems like a device that’s out of step with the thin ultrabook trend in laptops, despite having a handful of military-spec rugged features.

If the Latitude E6220 started at a reasonable price–$700, for instance–I’d be more inclined to recommend it. After all, while it’s thick and not entirely attractive, it’s well-featured and gets the job done in a reasonably compact package. Still, when a laptop makes the MacBook Air look like a bargain, you know you’re in for a tough sell…even for a rugged business laptop. If you’re not working on a construction site or in the desert, the HP Folio 13 is a far better alternative bet–or, wait for the soon-to-be-released Dell XPS 13, but if you need hard-core protection, be prepared to pay through the nose for it.

The Dell Latitude E6220 is solidly built and meant to take a beating somewhere between a ThinkPad and a ToughBook, but from a distance it looks like a plastic-clad, inferior version of Dell’s Vostro series. It’s actually the other way around: this Latitude is the high-end cousin to the Vostro.

A “Tri-Metal” design refers to an anodized aluminum back lid, magnesium alloy corners, and a powder-coated magnesium base. The rear hinges are steel; the keyboard is spill-resistant. You get the picture: this is a laptop that can take a beating. It’s also pretty lightweight: ours weighed in at 3.7 pounds. That’s more than an ultrabook like the HP Folio 13, but less than a standard laptop. It feels thick and chunky, though, for two reasons: while the Latitude E6220 is actually 0.97 inch thick, the 12.5-inch laptop has a small footprint, accentuating the thickness. Plus, a rear lip behind the lid adds secret chunkiness to the back end, even more so if you’re clipping on the six-cell battery. The whole package is thicker than any 12-inch laptop we’ve seen in recent memory. Yet, this Latitude lacks an optical drive. There doesn’t seem to be any advantage for the extra thickness besides shock absorption, although there’s, except that there’s a dock port on the base.

The backlit keyboard has a semi-raised design like recent Dell laptops, but it feels comfortable to type on. The wide but small touch pad is similarly quite responsive, but it’s too small for multitouch gestures. Discrete buttons lie underneath. A few dedicated volume control buttons above the keyboard are appreciated.

A 12.5-inch matte screen protects against glare, but the picture, while bright, wasn’t especially vivid when watching movies on Netflix. It’s better suited for office work: the 1,366×768-pixel resolution matches anything normally seen on a 13-incher. Stereo speakers seated on the underside of the Latitude’s front edge offer fair sound at middling volume; you’ll need to put on headphones in a moderately noisy room.

The included Webcam takes 1,280×720-pixel pictures and has a fair image quality, nothing impressive.

Business users will appreciate the sensible ports on the Latitude E6220: eSATA, ExpressCard, HDMI, VGA. Ethernet and the power jack are on the rear lip. Dell offers a ton of extra add-ons, everything from Bluetooth to fingerprint reader, light-sensitive Webcam upgrade and WiMax antenna, but they’ll cost you: $20 here, $30 there. It adds up. A Gobi 3000 wireless broadband card in any major carrier flavor costs $125.

Processor-wise, the Latitude E6220 starts with a 2.5GHz Intel Core i5-2520M CPU; at the top end, you can upgrade all the way to a 2.8 GHz Core i7-2640M for an extra $120. Our configuration had the middle-level 2.6 GHz Core i5-2540M CPU, which served up zippy speeds comparable to the HP Pavilion dm4-3090se (both have the same CPU). This Dell Latitude outperformed the HP Folio 13, which used, like all ultrabooks, a lower-speed Core i5 CPU. This Latitude only has Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics: that’s more than enough for a business traveler, but it’s not sufficient for a power graphics user.

The base Latitude E6220 comes with 4GB of RAM and a 250GB, 5400rpm hard drive. RAM can be expanded up to 8GB on Dell’s Web site for an extra $175, while users can shift over to a solid-state 128GB SSD for an extra $230, or 256GB for $580. Thus it comes as no surprise that we added up our 128GB SSD-equipped model and rang up a total of $2,016. For matters of reference, consider that you could get a 256GB SSD-equipped MacBook Air for $1,599.

Sure, the MacBook Air isn’t vPro-enabled. It lacks a fingerprint reader option, and it doesn’t come with a three-year warranty, which the Latitude E6220 includes standard (AppleCare costs an extra $300). Still, what Dell’s asking for this Latitude is quite a lot to swallow, durability or no.

Hide Review

The Canon PowerShot Elph 310 HS is sort of a misfit camera. Its 8x zoom lens isn’t quite long enough to attract people looking to improve on an older ultracompact camera, and the lens’ other qualities aren’t good enough for photographers who value a wider lens and larger maximum aperture. It seems to serve as an easy way to upsell from the older 5x zoom 300 HS: The 310 HS is only slightly larger, but has higher zoom for only $30 more. The 310 also has a larger, higher-resolution screen, making the deal look sweeter.

The 310 HS, when it was released in October 2011, was not an update to the 300 HS from February 2011–despite the serial naming. The 300 HS instead will be refreshed as the Elph 320 HS in March 2012 for $279.99, and will have the same lens as its predecessor–5x, f2.7-5.9, 24-120mm–but gets a new sensor and processor, Wi-Fi, and a touch-screen LCD. This, in turn, will probably make the 310′s longer zoom and now lower price look attractive to people looking to save money because they don’t need Wi-Fi or a touch screen.

Yes, it seems the 310 HS exists mainly to fill a hole for retailers, which shouldn’t matter, I guess, as long as the camera is good. And it is good, by the way.

The Elph 310 HS produces generally excellent snapshots. Photos do get softer and noisier above ISO 200–typical for point-and-shoots–but ISO 400 and 800 are still very usable. The noise and noise reduction are well balanced, so you still get good color and detail at these higher sensitivities without things looking overly smeary or blurry. Colors desaturate some at ISO 1600 and 3200, subjects look very soft, and detail is greatly diminished. You may also notice yellow blotches of color noise. While you might not want to view them at larger sizes or heavily crop them, the high-ISO results should be satisfactory for Web use at small sizes.

Video quality is on par with a very good HD pocket video camera: good enough for Web use and nondiscriminating TV viewing. The full HD video records at 24fps. Panning the camera will create judder and there is visible trailing on fast-moving subjects. Those things are typical of the video from most compact cameras, and less noticeable at small sizes. Some viewers, including myself, may still find it too distracting. The zoom lens does work while recording; it moves very slowly, though, likely to prevent the movement from being picked up by the stereo mics on top. In quiet scenes, you’ll likely still hear it. Audio in general sounds somewhat muffled, which can make even close subjects difficult to hear.

The 310 HS has a fairly large assortment of shooting options, but almost all of them are automatic modes, meaning there’s no full control over shutter speed and aperture. The shooting-mode switch on the camera’s right side has two options: one for Smart Auto and one for everything else, designated by a picture of a camera. Leaving Auto gives you access to a Program mode as well as all the scene modes, creative effects modes, and miniature effect and slow-motion video recording. However, they’re laid out in one long list, so if you’re the type to change modes frequently, this can be a pain. If you want to do more than just take snapshots, there is certainly a lot to play with on the 310 HS–for both movies and photos.

Hide Review

The Canon PowerShot Elph 310 HS is sort of a misfit camera. Its 8x zoom lens isn’t quite long enough to attract people looking to improve on an older ultracompact camera, and the lens’ other qualities aren’t good enough for photographers who value a wider lens and larger maximum aperture. It seems to serve as an easy way to upsell from the older 5x zoom 300 HS: The 310 HS is only slightly larger, but has higher zoom for only $30 more. The 310 also has a larger, higher-resolution screen, making the deal look sweeter.

The 310 HS, when it was released in October 2011, was not an update to the 300 HS from February 2011–despite the serial naming. The 300 HS instead will be refreshed as the Elph 320 HS in March 2012 for $279.99, and will have the same lens as its predecessor–5x, f2.7-5.9, 24-120mm–but gets a new sensor and processor, Wi-Fi, and a touch-screen LCD. This, in turn, will probably make the 310′s longer zoom and now lower price look attractive to people looking to save money because they don’t need Wi-Fi or a touch screen.

Yes, it seems the 310 HS exists mainly to fill a hole for retailers, which shouldn’t matter, I guess, as long as the camera is good. And it is good, by the way.

The Elph 310 HS produces generally excellent snapshots. Photos do get softer and noisier above ISO 200–typical for point-and-shoots–but ISO 400 and 800 are still very usable. The noise and noise reduction are well balanced, so you still get good color and detail at these higher sensitivities without things looking overly smeary or blurry. Colors desaturate some at ISO 1600 and 3200, subjects look very soft, and detail is greatly diminished. You may also notice yellow blotches of color noise. While you might not want to view them at larger sizes or heavily crop them, the high-ISO results should be satisfactory for Web use at small sizes.

Video quality is on par with a very good HD pocket video camera: good enough for Web use and nondiscriminating TV viewing. The full HD video records at 24fps. Panning the camera will create judder and there is visible trailing on fast-moving subjects. Those things are typical of the video from most compact cameras, and less noticeable at small sizes. Some viewers, including myself, may still find it too distracting. The zoom lens does work while recording; it moves very slowly, though, likely to prevent the movement from being picked up by the stereo mics on top. In quiet scenes, you’ll likely still hear it. Audio in general sounds somewhat muffled, which can make even close subjects difficult to hear.

The 310 HS has a fairly large assortment of shooting options, but almost all of them are automatic modes, meaning there’s no full control over shutter speed and aperture. The shooting-mode switch on the camera’s right side has two options: one for Smart Auto and one for everything else, designated by a picture of a camera. Leaving Auto gives you access to a Program mode as well as all the scene modes, creative effects modes, and miniature effect and slow-motion video recording. However, they’re laid out in one long list, so if you’re the type to change modes frequently, this can be a pain. If you want to do more than just take snapshots, there is certainly a lot to play with on the 310 HS–for both movies and photos.

Hide Review

The Canon PowerShot Elph 310 HS is sort of a misfit camera. Its 8x zoom lens isn’t quite long enough to attract people looking to improve on an older ultracompact camera, and the lens’ other qualities aren’t good enough for photographers who value a wider lens and larger maximum aperture. It seems to serve as an easy way to upsell from the older 5x zoom 300 HS: The 310 HS is only slightly larger, but has higher zoom for only $30 more. The 310 also has a larger, higher-resolution screen, making the deal look sweeter.

The 310 HS, when it was released in October 2011, was not an update to the 300 HS from February 2011–despite the serial naming. The 300 HS instead will be refreshed as the Elph 320 HS in March 2012 for $279.99, and will have the same lens as its predecessor–5x, f2.7-5.9, 24-120mm–but gets a new sensor and processor, Wi-Fi, and a touch-screen LCD. This, in turn, will probably make the 310′s longer zoom and now lower price look attractive to people looking to save money because they don’t need Wi-Fi or a touch screen.

Yes, it seems the 310 HS exists mainly to fill a hole for retailers, which shouldn’t matter, I guess, as long as the camera is good. And it is good, by the way.

The Elph 310 HS produces generally excellent snapshots. Photos do get softer and noisier above ISO 200–typical for point-and-shoots–but ISO 400 and 800 are still very usable. The noise and noise reduction are well balanced, so you still get good color and detail at these higher sensitivities without things looking overly smeary or blurry. Colors desaturate some at ISO 1600 and 3200, subjects look very soft, and detail is greatly diminished. You may also notice yellow blotches of color noise. While you might not want to view them at larger sizes or heavily crop them, the high-ISO results should be satisfactory for Web use at small sizes.

Video quality is on par with a very good HD pocket video camera: good enough for Web use and nondiscriminating TV viewing. The full HD video records at 24fps. Panning the camera will create judder and there is visible trailing on fast-moving subjects. Those things are typical of the video from most compact cameras, and less noticeable at small sizes. Some viewers, including myself, may still find it too distracting. The zoom lens does work while recording; it moves very slowly, though, likely to prevent the movement from being picked up by the stereo mics on top. In quiet scenes, you’ll likely still hear it. Audio in general sounds somewhat muffled, which can make even close subjects difficult to hear.

The 310 HS has a fairly large assortment of shooting options, but almost all of them are automatic modes, meaning there’s no full control over shutter speed and aperture. The shooting-mode switch on the camera’s right side has two options: one for Smart Auto and one for everything else, designated by a picture of a camera. Leaving Auto gives you access to a Program mode as well as all the scene modes, creative effects modes, and miniature effect and slow-motion video recording. However, they’re laid out in one long list, so if you’re the type to change modes frequently, this can be a pain. If you want to do more than just take snapshots, there is certainly a lot to play with on the 310 HS–for both movies and photos.

Hide Review