PDAs are obviously not designed to be used as hammers or to be dropped onto concrete from the top of ladders, but so far damage has not been a significant problem. Reasons are:
- Once tradesmen realise how useful the devices are, they tend to look after them.
- A range of protective covers are available.
- Most tradesmen leave the PDA in the glove box. Many carry a cheap cell phone and only use the PDA for data (you don’t want the take the PDA fishing on the weekend anyway).
In fact, the early “ruggedised” models have largely disappeared from the market. Given how expensive they were, you would have to break several standard PDAs before a justifying the cost of a ruggedised model.