Sunday May 27, 2012

Toughbook

Toughbook

In November, Panasonic will release this new heavy duty notebook. The CF-31 has a body resistant to water, dust, shock and vibrations. Its screen is 13.1 inches, and its has a 160GB hard drive, up to 6GB of DDR3 SDRAM and 1024 x 768 resolution displays. Price is expected to be around 400,000 yen.

  • 0

    alladin

    For that price, I would rather buy an apple computer. Plus the Toughtbook doesn`t look that great. It looks like something that should be used in a war zone like Iraq.

  • 0

    warallthetime

    @alladin That is its intended purpose. Work sites, heavy travel, war zones etc.

  • 0

    ebisen

    Thank you Panasonic. I couldn't possibly do my job without a Toughbook. Mine was once frozen at - 25 degrees then dropped in water, and it still survived...

  • 0

    cleo

    ebisen, where did you find water at -25 degrees? Don't you mean it was dropped on ice (ie it's shockproof, not waterproof)?

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    paulinusa

    Considering the price I've always wondered how many of these Toughbooks they sell. Seems like a real niche product.

  • 0

    GW

    cleo,

    he said frozen & then dropped in water

  • 0

    Badsey

    They sell alot of these and the used market is quite robust also. Most robust notebook made for quite a few years.

    I like the older Titanium framed IBM notebooks (before Lenovo).

  • 0

    theFu

    I've worked projects for mobile workers where we purchased 20,000 units. Yes, they are a niche product, but between mobile workers and military uses, they sell enough. We bought 10% more than were needed to always have a replacement stock that could be fedex next day. These systems are deployed all over the world - Alaska, Panama, Iraq, and all over the USA in telecom trucks in tens of thousands of locations.

    Prior to Toughbooks, we bought Itronix hardened laptops.

    Personally, I can be careful enough to afford 4 regular laptops instead of 1 of these, but I've seen line workers treat these just like they treat any other tool and throw them around in trucks or forget them on the roof.

  • 0

    wanderlust

    Do they have a solid state drive, or just a regular spinning disk, maybe shock-mounted? 160GB isn't much, 300~500GB SSDs are pretty common now, such as in mac book pros!

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    ebisen

    Cleo, it was in Northern Europe, the PC was used to take log data for 24 hours, then it slipped from my hands directly into ice cold river water. No problems at all and I'm still using it, 3 years after. I work in automotive

  • 0

    Foxie

    Great to use on ships! I will definitely get one.

  • 0

    DZKUN808

    Toughbooks hold about 60% percent of law enforcement mobile computer market in the US. They are great for this. Cops are harsh on equipment and if you bolt it down in a car it needs to be tough. Regular users will fine a toughbook CF equivalent to driving a tank which is something they might find unnecessary.

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