Comments

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  Amit - December 19th, 2006 at 4:38 pm GMT+5

  Even though I don’t work on the road or in the field, I feel like I need a toughbook to withstand all the abuse I’ve given my laptops. Its great that Panasonic is adding additional support to their wireless cards. This will be wonderful for people who actually work out in the field without internet access.

  It might be smart for cell phone providers to give out cards for free or cheap like they do for cell phone activations and charge extraordinary prices for the service (which they already do).

  Amit

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  Jon - December 19th, 2006 at 4:53 pm GMT+5

  Toughbooks are a great concept but they always seem to be a year behind spec wise then current laptops – hence why I never got one. I wish Dell or HP would buy out this division within Panasonic OR release their own version of stronger laptops with more modern specs. These days, simply running your finger with some pressure behind the “protective” plate of the monitor creates distortions on the display… at least they haven’t resorted to selling “laptop cases” to fix this engineering flaw (although in this case, I wish they where available) ;-)

  The day they release SOLID laptops (they can use magnesium and composite materials to keep the weight down) will be the day that we no longer need to buy a laptop every year or two due to a monitor or hardware issue rendering them useless.

  Jon

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  Ryan Stickney - December 19th, 2006 at 6:16 pm GMT+5

  Say hello to the ultimate toughbook.

  http://us.kontron.com/index.php?id=226&cat=566&productid=1600

  It’s far from light Jon, I think the specs says something like 14 pounds, but pretty much any bad place you could think of using a computer (read the moon) this thing will probably work. Lugging the thing around might suck but really when you need something to calibrate your drill and other high tech construction bots to build a under the ice secret hideout in Antartica I think this will be the best option.

  Didn’t apple at one point release an all aluminum super strong ibook?

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  Isaiah - December 20th, 2006 at 1:02 am GMT+5

  Whoa, even the picture looks tough. :o Granted, not as tough as the one that Ryan linked to (which looks like a tank masquerading as a notebook), but the Panasonic notebooks look pretty durable.

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  Jon - December 20th, 2006 at 9:11 am GMT+5

  Jon:

  I agree, today’s laptops cannot come close to being tough or durable at all. However, given the demands of today’s travellers, I don’t think your average laptop will ever get to be durable or tough, simply because me and you don’t want to lug around more than 5 or 6 lbs of computing power.

  Using more expensive or complex metals and alloys such as magnesium can jack up the costs of your computer a lot, considering how most computers are cheap aluminum and plastic cases. However, the problem with most laptop damage isn’t from deformation of the laptop case or the crushing of the exterior, but from the shock from hitting the ground. I believe these toughbooks have quite a bit of interior padding to protect the delicate internal organs of the laptop, in addition to an ample amount of waterproofing to stop idiots from frying their computer when they accidentally spill ramen all over their keyboards. True story.

  All in all, these computers are looking a lot nicer than the older ones that they’ve been advertising on TV. I always wondered who it was that actually bought these computers, but I’ve actually met some people (well, my friend’s dad who works in construction), and he actually swears by his computer.

  And… I’m back.

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