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Panasonic Toughbook Android tablet due this year

Panasonic is creating a 10-inch Android tablet under the Toughbook brand, due out in the fourth quarter of 2011. Panasonic's aim is to create a tablet for commercial and government use that is both secure and durable. Pricing has yet to be announced.

The exact specs detailed in Panasonic's press release are a little hazy, but we know the screen will be a 10.1-inch XGA multitouch panel and that GPS will come standard. An embedded 3G/4G modem is optional. Hopefully Panasonic will take a cue from Toshiba and offer a swappable battery, as well.

The niche … Read more

Panasonic Toughbook 53 gets smaller, faster

Panasonic's new Toughbook looks a lot like its old Toughbook. That is to say, it's bulky, is rated for MIL-STD-810G tests including drops up to 30 inches on its sides or 12 inches on the corners, and has a magnesium-alloy case, a shock-mounted hard drive, and spill-resistant keyboard.

The differences, however, are many: the new Toughbook 53 has lost over a pound of weight, dropping to a reasonable 5.6 pounds and downsizing its screen from 15.6 inches to 14 inches. The track pad has gotten larger, and added multitouch. 4G LTE service is now offered--a first … Read more

New Toughbook 31: Perfect for multitasking in a sandstorm

If you're in the military or working in rough field conditions and need a computer upgrade, you're in luck: Panasonic has just announced the upgraded Toughbook 31, a new successor to its most-rugged Toughbook line.

With a weight and thickness that would be unappealing to anyone but those who need serious environmental armor, the Toughbook 31 comes with either an Intel Core i3 or i5 processor, optional ATI HD 5630 graphics, and up to a claimed 11 hours of battery life.

A 13.3-inch LED-backlit touch-screen display has CircuLumin technology that Panasonic says will enable viewing of the … Read more

Panasonic Toughbook C1: a 3.2-pound 'business rugged' convertible tablet

Is there room for a thin "business rugged" laptop that costs more than twice what "regular" laptops do? Walking the liminal plane between touch tablets and ultraportable laptops, the newly announced 12.1-inch Panasonic Toughbook C1 looks like an attempt to capitalize on the tablet meme while still catering to a small business crowd that may not take to boxier and more weatherproof designs. Slimmer than many Toughbooks before it but not exactly as super-durable as them either, the newly announced Toughbook C1 bridges the gap with a look that reminds us of mainstream Panasonic laptops … Read more

Panasonic Toughbook H1 Field is the anti-iPad

Whether or not tablets take over as a new mobile computing form factor of choice for much of the world depends on whether they can be easily used for key functions in ways that smartphones and laptops can't. Clearly, different users will be seeking different "key functions," and thus Panasonic has announced the Toughbook H1 Field. In many ways--nearly every way, in fact--the Toughbook H1 Field is a polar opposite to Apple's iPad.

A variation on an existing H1 used in professional healthcare environments, the Field combines Windows 7 OS with an 1.86 GHz Atom … Read more

Wrapping up Speeds and Feeds, part 3: Ruggedness

As I continue to wind down Speeds and Feeds, I picked ruggedness as the topic for part 3.

In part 2 of this wrap-up series, I on Tuesday discussed reliability, suggesting that an increasing portion of the transistor budget in personal computers should be used to avoid, detect, and recover from hardware, software, and data errors.

Ruggedness, the ability of a PC to survive adverse physical conditions, complements reliability by further increasing the practical availability of a PC to do useful work.

As with efficiency in power management (part 1's topic), this is an area where PCs can learn … Read more

Panasonic's Atom-based medical tablet

This product is so new, it doesn't even have a name. Yet.

During the announcement of the new ToughBook notebooks, Panasonic also took the opportunity to show off one of its upcoming Intel Atom-based tablets. This white unit is meant for use in the medical field. Aside from a touch-screen display, it has features like RFID and a fingerprint sensor built in. You probably won't see this ToughBook in stores anywhere but don't be surprised if you see a nurse keying in your particulars and medical history on something like this in the future.

The company will … Read more