Laptop for military

Hello all,

I'm looking for guidance on picking out a personal laptop for my son. He's a U.S. Marine, soon to be stationed in Okinawa. His one prerequisite is that it must be compatible with a CAC (Common Access Card) reader and the US-DOD software required to interface with it.

From what I've read so far, there is a version of the root toolkit for the CAC interface that is compatable with windows 11. So, the software side of it doesn't sound too complicated.

My main focus is finding him something compact but designed to handle travel and rough handling. I suspect that his use will be primarily limited to email, we browsing, video streaming, online banking and whatever the DOD-CAC system offers.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Your quest reminds me of a Notebook I used to have years ago with the PCMCIA Card Reader in it, was pretty heavy.

As I recall Sony and Panasonic used to have Notebooks/Laptops of a suitable military grade for rough handling.

This page may have help for the CAC Reader part, haven't seen a Notebook with the Reader in it: https://militarycac.com/files/CAC_Reader_Class.pdf

Panasonic TB 55
A Panasonic Toughbook would work.

Josey Wales said:

Panasonic TB 55
A Panasonic Toughbook would work.

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Yep, that looks like the kind of laptop I'd buy for Gulfstream Aerospace customers.

FTNR21 said:

My main focus is finding him something compact but designed to handle travel and rough handling.

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Welcome to Eleven Forum.

Dell have a range of Rugged laptops and tablets.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/search/rugged?r=36679,35728&p=1&ac=facetselect&t=Product

starchase said:

Yep, that looks like the kind of laptop I'd buy for Gulfstream Aerospace customers.

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I used a Toughbook and they are great. I have a TB CF-52 and you can drop it off a roof and it will still work. A marine would love it.

Personal Laptop.


Welcome to the Forum !

In addition to Berton's post #2, check the above link. Seems a rootkit is required to be installed. Not sure any specific computer is required. May want to google for other info.

May be best to have him check with his organization on recommendations. If I am not mistaken (but check), the CAC card is required only to access official information, not personal info like emails, personal files, general surfing, etc. For example, if he needed to check on bulletins or info from his unit it would require the CAC card.

Thank you and your son for his service !

I wrote a story about rugged devices for military and other hazardous duty use for TechTarget last month, but it apparently hasn't been published yet. PM me if you want me to send you the Word file. TL;DR version is: look at Pansonic Toughbook and Dell Rugged Extreme models first, then check out Durabook and Getac offerings as well. All should fully comply with milspec computer requirements.
HTH,
--Ed--

I’ve used both HP and ASUS laptops with CAC sites. My son is in the Navy and has a MACBoo which he uses for CAC sites. Both of us have little folding USB CAC readers from Identiv. MilitaryCAC.com is a good source of information and instructions. Win 11 has native CAC abilities and you have to install the govt root certificates but it’s not difficult.

FTNR21 said:

Hello all,

I'm looking for guidance on picking out a personal laptop for my son. He's a U.S. Marine, soon to be stationed in Okinawa. His one prerequisite is that it must be compatible with a CAC (Common Access Card) reader and the US-DOD software required to interface with it.

From what I've read so far, there is a version of the root toolkit for the CAC interface that is compatable with windows 11. So, the software side of it doesn't sound too complicated.

My main focus is finding him something compact but designed to handle travel and rough handling. I suspect that his use will be primarily limited to email, we browsing, video streaming, online banking and whatever the DOD-CAC system offers.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Click to expand...

Pretty much any PC will be compatible with CAC as it only required a USB port for the card reader.

Additionally, if the PC is to be used in an "official" capacity, one would be provided. If he needs one for his normal everyday duties, any PC will do, and any special requirements or access would be provided/setup by his IT department.

In a nutshell there is no "military PC" you can buy. Those will be configured as needed by the military (IT department) themselves.

All that said, I'd personally look towards one of Lenovo's business class notebooks (ThinkPad's) as they are more than capable of handling business/military needs.

Retired U.S. Air Force veteran - 26 years.

mostly agree with DRU2. I’m retired military and civil servant. My organization did not provide CAC readers but you can buy for $10-15 in the BX/NEX or get the small filling ones like Identiv SCR3500 for about $15 online. I’m older and fairly presbyopic so I have a 15 inch laptop but if I was a young military man I would go with a 13 inch model. I also ditch the charging brick in favor of a small charging cube like the Anker nano 65W and a 10 ft usb-c cable

Berton said:

Your quest reminds me of a Notebook I used to have years ago with the PCMCIA Card Reader in it, was pretty heavy.

As I recall Sony and Panasonic used to have Notebooks/Laptops of a suitable military grade for rough handling.

This page may have help for the CAC Reader part, haven't seen a Notebook with the Reader in it: https://militarycac.com/files/CAC_Reader_Class.pdf

Click to expand...

Thank you for the link. That's extremely useful information.

Josey Wales said:

Panasonic TB 55
A Panasonic Toughbook would work.

Click to expand...

That's exactly the kind of machine that I envisioned. Thank you!

Bree said:

Welcome to Eleven Forum.

Dell have a range of Rugged laptops and tablets.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/search/rugged?r=36679,35728&p=1&ac=facetselect&t=Product

Click to expand...

We've always bought Dell for home and been happy with them, but then our demands and expectations aren't particularly high either. My son's requirements are going to be much more considerable. I'm glad that the brand holds high regard here. That means a lot. Thank you.

csun said:

Personal Laptop.


Welcome to the Forum !

In addition to Berton's post #2, check the above link. Seems a rootkit is required to be installed. Not sure any specific computer is required. May want to google for other info.

May be best to have him check with his organization on recommendations. If I am not mistaken (but check), the CAC card is required only to access official information, not personal info like emails, personal files, general surfing, etc. For example, if he needed to check on bulletins or info from his unit it would require the CAC card.

Thank you and your son for his service !

Click to expand...

Good advice. I'll pass that on to my son and see what he says before we make our final choice. As far as I understand it, he needs the CAC interface capability to access his personnel profile for things like payroll, benefits and so on. They use something called "Marines Online" to see things like their leave balance so maybe that requires the CAC.

Dru2 said:

Pretty much any PC will be compatible with CAC as it only required a USB port for the card reader.

Additionally, if the PC is to be used in an "official" capacity, one would be provided. If he needs one for his normal everyday duties, any PC will do, and any special requirements or access would be provided/setup by his IT department.

In a nutshell there is no "military PC" you can buy. Those will be configured as needed by the military (IT department) themselves.

All that said, I'd personally look towards one of Lenovo's business class notebooks (ThinkPad's) as they are more than capable of handling business/military needs.

Retired U.S. Air Force veteran - 26 years.

Click to expand...

Thank you for your service and your input. If it was going to be used for duty, I would completely agree with you, but as I mentioned above, I think that he needs the CAC interface capability to access his personnel records. Also, bear in mind that this is The Marine Corps. I have many friends with military service in every U.S. branch and the one thing that I hear most from the Marines is how limited their resources are/were and how much of their own money that they had to spend to get the things that they were required to have for duty.

What I do know is that he was very specific that a CAC reader is a necessity and I know that he wouldn't have said that unless in came from someone with authority.

bfunke said:

mostly agree with DRU2. I’m retired military and civil servant. My organization did not provide CAC readers but you can buy for $10-15 in the BX/NEX or get the small filling ones like Identiv SCR3500 for about $15 online. I’m older and fairly presbyopic so I have a 15 inch laptop but if I was a young military man I would go with a 13 inch model. I also ditch the charging brick in favor of a small charging cube like the Anker nano 65W and a 10 ft usb-c cable

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That's really good info. One of the details that I needed was size and the compact charger is something that I didn't consider. Thank you.


I really appreciate all the feedback. I don't follow tech closely enough to keep up with the latest specs and trends but, I am a firm believer in end-user and ground-level expert critiques which is what typically drives my decision. However, I know that you can't just take reviews at face value because some people just don't understand the product enough to know how it's supposed to work. So, trying to sort through reviews on top of processing all the technical stuff can be completely overwhelming. Getting input from folks like you is invaluable.

Thank you all!

FTNR21 said:

Thank you for your service and your input. If it was going to be used for duty, I would completely agree with you, but as I mentioned above, I think that he needs the CAC interface capability to access his personnel records.

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Pretty much any PC will do here as long as it has a USB port for a card reader. Or you can buy a laptop with a card reader built-in such as this Lenovo ThinkPad T16 Intel (16”).

Note: The linked laptop above is only an example of a laptop with a built-in card reader, not saying you need that one.

FTNR21 said:

Also, bear in mind that this is The Marine Corps. I have many friends with military service in every U.S. branch and the one thing that I hear most from the Marines is how limited their resources are/were and how much of their own money that they had to spend to get the things that they were required to have for duty.

Click to expand...

That has zero bearing on Security. If you are required to access secure areas, you will be given the tools necessary. No one is messing around with military security.

All that said, I honestly think you're over thinking things as any modern-day laptop is capable of handling a CAC card reader. And if it's used to connect to any secure resources, that access will be controlled by the organization's IT department, even if it's your own laptop.

From that standpoint, I still say look at a "business" class laptop as they tend have more security focused features. Again, my vote is Lenovo's business class laptops, example their ThinkPad series.

Good luck

If I was in the market for a ToughBook I'd look at refurbished with a 1-year or more warranty. I'd shop at some of the offerings here:
[I don't do eBay.]

So, I've been looking at several options and I'm fenced on a couple things. I'm curious to know what the concensus is on graphics card and processor. Example being, NVIDIA GeForce vs Intel Iris XE and Intel i7 vs i9.

I don't think my son will be using the laptop for games but he will most likely be streaming video like Netflix and YouTube. So, I'm not sure the higher grade graphics card or processor is a necessity.

Gaming is quite prevalent among young troops. If he doesn’t game, any laptop with modern i5 or i7 should work well. HeCI I stream videos to my TV with a $35 Raspberry Pi running Linux based OSMC and it works fine at 1080. You should ask him what he thinks he needs. He will likely also need MS Office. The military used to offer Office 2016 for $10 through MS Homeuse program using his .mil email but they‘ve changed to discounted Office 365 licenses.

bfunke said:

Gaming is quite prevalent among young troops. If he doesn’t game, any laptop with modern i5 or i7 should work well. HeCI I stream videos to my TV with a $35 Raspberry Pi running Linux based OSMC and it works fine at 1080. You should ask him what he thinks he needs. He will likely also need MS Office. The military used to offer Office 2016 for $10 through MS Homeuse program using his .mil email but they‘ve changed to discounted Office 365 licenses.

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He has XBox and Playstation for gaming. He plans to take that with him when he ships out to his duty station. Yes, he does want Office. I can get 2019 Pro from a good source online for under $60 and 2021 for under $70. I also get discounts through my employer that could be even cheaper.

He put a lot of emphasis on the laptop being as compact and light as possible. He feels that a 13" or 14" display would work for him.

bfunke said:

mostly agree with DRU2. I’m retired military and civil servant. My organization did not provide CAC readers but you can buy for $10-15 in the BX/NEX or get the small filling ones like Identiv SCR3500 for about $15 online. I’m older and fairly presbyopic so I have a 15 inch laptop but if I was a young military man I would go with a 13 inch model. I also ditch the charging brick in favor of a small charging cube like the Anker nano 65W and a 10 ft usb-c cable

Click to expand...

So, we went with a Dell Inspiron 14 (5430). The complete opposite that I thought my son was looking for. Turns out that he wanted something as thin and compact as possible. The Dell we picked was the smallest we could find with the system specs that he needs.

With space saving in mind, I really liked your choice to use a compact charger. Is this something like what you have?

Yes except I went with the smaller nano 715 that has only a single usb-c.