Xenarc RT106-PRO 10.1" RT106-PRO

The RT106-PRO's Celeron N5100 lands in the 11th percentile for CPU performance, making it painfully slow for anything beyond light note-taking. Its rugged build and 4G LTE are its only saving graces. For over $1,000, you'd be better off with a consumer tablet and a rugged case.

The Xenarc RT106-PRO is built like a tank, but under the hood it's closer to a calculator. Its Intel Celeron N5100 processor lands in the 11th percentile for CPU performance in our database, making it one of the slowest tablets we've ever tested. That's not hyperbole—multiple owners report that even basic web-based video calls max out the CPU and cause constant buffering. On the flip side, its connectivity hardware is a standout, with integrated 4G LTE and a solid port selection earning an 89th percentile ranking. The 8GB of RAM (66th percentile) is actually decent for this class, but the 128GB eMMC storage is middle-of-the-pack and feels sluggish. The 10.1-inch screen packs a punch at 1000 nits brightness, great for direct sunlight, yet overall screen quality sits at a disappointing 14th percentile. So while this tablet will survive a rainstorm or a drop, it's going to frustrate you the moment you try to do anything productive.

At its core, the Celeron N5100 is a quad-core chip from Intel's low-power Jasper Lake family, running at a base clock of just 1.1 GHz. That puts it in the 11th percentile for CPU power, and you feel every bit of that. Opening multiple browser tabs feels like wading through mud, and the integrated UHD Graphics (14th percentile) won't help with anything beyond basic display output. The 8GB of RAM is actually a small bright spot—66th percentile means it's above average for a tablet—but the eMMC storage drags load times down even further. The one area where the RT106-PRO shines is connectivity: with 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, and a USB-C port, it's ranked 89th percentile. That means if you're out in the field and need to sync data, it'll actually manage that, just slowly. But for any task that requires more than a single spreadsheet at a time, you're going to be staring at loading spinners.

The price on this thing is all over the map. We found it listed anywhere from $1,084 to over $20,000 across different vendors—yes, an $18,948 spread. Even at the lowest end, the RT106-PRO is wildly overpriced for the performance you get. An iPad Air with an M-series chip will run circles around it for half the money. The only argument for its cost is the rugged build and integrated 4G, but you'd need those features to be absolutely mission-critical to swallow the performance pill.

Stacked against the Apple iPad Pro M5, Microsoft Surface Pro, or even a mid-range Samsung Galaxy Tab, the Xenarc is a dinosaur in computing power. Those competitors land in the top tiers of CPU and GPU performance, while the RT106-PRO scrapes the bottom. Even the Lenovo Idea Tab Pro, often priced under $400, embarrasses it in benchmarks. But none of those can survive a dust storm or offer a built-in 4G modem. If durability and connectivity are all that matter, the Xenarc has a niche. For anyone else, it's not even a contest.

If you don't work in a construction site, oil field, or military deployment, skip this. The performance is so weak that even basic office tasks become an exercise in patience. You'll get a far better computing experience from almost any modern consumer tablet, often for less money. Unless ruggedness and 4G are absolute must-haves, this tablet is not for you.

The Xenarc RT106-PRO is a one-trick pony. It can survive drops, dust, and splashes, but that trick comes at the cost of everything else. If your job involves data entry in the mud and you need a Windows device that won't shatter on the first fall, maybe—and at the lower end of the price spectrum—it could limp along. For anyone else, this tablet is a slow, expensive compromise.