Panasonic updates Toughbook line of notebooks
Refresh sheds traditional "industrial" look for more traditional notebook design.
Panasonic announced a new series of ToughBook notebooks in Japan boasting a new industrial design that sheds the "extreme" design of its predecessor in favor of a more mainstream sleek look, but Panasonic says the machines don't sacrifice the durability of the line. The new 8-series of devices, including the F8, R8, T8, W8 and Y8, support up to 220 pounds of pressure on the case, feature scratch resistant screens just like their predecessors, and can survive 2.5-feet drops. The lot of the devices, the R8, W8 and T8, have Centrino Core 2 Duo processors at 1.2GHz, 1GB of RAM, 120GB hard drives, and range with screensizes from 10.1 to 12.1 inches. The Y8 is a higher end machine, with a processor update to 2GHz and a larger screen (14.1-inches,) while the F8 is the highest end of the new notebooks with a 2.26 GHz upgraded processor, 160GB hard drive and includess 2GB of RAM. Panasonic says the machines will hit Japan on October 17 at an open price.
[Via AkhiabaraNews]
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Comments (2)
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Dorie P. (1:07 AM on Fri Sep 26, 2008)
These changes look worthwhile. Toughbooks are great for public safety environments. The older toughbooks are very chunky and heavy. The keys on the newer models look a little bigger and ready to deal with public safety or construction folks with large hands. Hope the latch is easier to manipulate. The more RAM the better on these machines. Optimal field use includes access to large JPG, PDF and DWG files.
MobileMe (8:30 AM on Mon Oct 27, 2008)
Wireless Gobi is out today in some of the units according to Panasonic dealer USAT Corp. Dealer certified retrofits are also available for select "wireless ready" units such as the Toughbook 52, Toughbook 30, and Toughbook 19 . The latest entrant, the Toughbook F8, has a 'thin and light' form factor, with a built in handle in a similar fashion to the Toughbook 30 and Toughbook 52. A surprise in these new models is the high-end Toughbook 52 remains the only unit to support 1920x1200 natively (others support up to 1600x resolution or lower) by using memory embedded on a video card as opposed to shared RAM of the Intel embedded graphics solution. Wireless Gobi technology is the focus of these new units, and is a remarkably flexible methods of extending carrier agnostic "anywhere wireless internet" to the Toughbook line.