The model we received also had a WWAN card with a small, protected slot for the SIM card on the left side. In terms of performance this is a standard Core 2 Duo running at 1.6GHz with 2GB of RAM. It is running WinXP Professional and scored 1893 on Geekbench, about average for this level of hardware.
The laptop is rated for a number of torturous conditions. It is ostensibly water resistant – I wouldn’t dunk it but it can get get – and can survive up to 300 pounds of pressure. We clearly went above and beyond the call of duly with only a small crack to show for it on a piece that could be swapped out easily. The screen is excellent, even in direct sunlight, and although the bastard is heavy as sin – this one weighed almost nine pounds – it’s great for an outdoors installation on a construction site or inside the cab of a police car. This is not a road warrior’s laptop by any means unless, of course, you plan on taking it into Barter Town.
Bottom Line
The laptop in this configuration costs about $3,600. If you work in severe environments it’s a godsend. I’ve never seen a laptop that can stand up to the abuse I gave it and survive. I dropped it a few times off camera and decided to go for broke with the car and, as you see, I was left with some cosmetic damage and a smile on my face.
Photo Gallery by Picturesurf
There was an article about this somewhere before I think and they shot the computer and had an elephant step on it and a tiger or lion bite it and it still worked afterward.
Yes. We also hit it with a Volkswagen.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/23/toughbook-tiger-elephant-technology-personal-test.html
If you’re gonna run it over – run it over. I doubt in the event a laptop did get hit by a car, it would be as gingerly as your driver did.
Around for years, rock solid and great for anyone who has to wash more than germs off their hands at the end of a work day. For the average user, having one would is like driving an original Hummer through the burbs to the local coffee shop.
The issue with the running it over with a car test is that if it ever happened in real life the laptop might survive but the owner would not. I would be more interested if the notebook was tested as a shield vs. a speed bump.
I had a toughbook for work. waterproof, pretty heat resistant and can be dropped often from great heights. I really miss it but the trackpad, monitor resolution and speed sucked!
5K just gets you a slow computer that can handle anything!
Driving over it with a car is lame. If you really want to test it give it to my kids for a couple of days. If it can break it will.
Run over it a bit slower next time. Maybe with a lighter car.
I have a W-4 and although it’s weak in terms of hardware, it is the perfect portable developer’s laptop. I’ve dropped it, banged it around – always comes back ticking.
Only thing that really harmed it was dropping a pair of scissors on it in Iraq (the heavy, half-pounders that your teacher always had and never let you use). Landed on the keyboard danger side first, killed one of the tracks throughout the keyboard (so random letters ceased to function). $45 and a 10-min install later, it was back up and running – good as new.
I forgot to mention – I constantly get amazing reactions to it, “That is the smaller computer I’ve ever seen.”
One of the primary reasons I bought it – small enough to fit into my daughters backpack, light enough to be thrown around like a frisbee and strong enough to withstand that punishment.
When we travel, I usually carry a backpack with an elastic mesh screen thing along the outside. It’s small enough to fit in that small mesh bag, no problem, with the A/C adapter.
We had toughbooks at a couple of ambulance services I worked for. In 15 years of being a paramedic, we’d broken
everything from needles to cardiac monitors. Never broke one of these though. I’ve seen them puked on, take a Double Gulp of Mtn. Dew, and fall about ten feet off of stuff and keep on ticking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M2_Browning_machine_gun
let me know the results
wow …let me check it out.
wow i could take my anger out on it when my internet is slow. two in one
We thought at first you meant taking a beating, like it was financially dissapointing. Well, it’s good to know that Panasonic is performing quite well in a recession :-)
I wouldn’t classify the Toyota Rav4 as a “truck”