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Panasonic debuts 5-inch Toughpad tablets that can make voice calls

The Japanese company calls its two new devices, the FZ-E1 and FZ-X1 tablets, but they look more like 5-inch smartphones.

Aloysius Low Senior Editor
Aloysius Low is a Senior Editor at CNET covering mobile and Asia. Based in Singapore, he loves playing Dota 2 when he can spare the time and is also the owner-minion of two adorable cats.
Aloysius Low
Aloysius Low/CNET

BARCELONA, Spain -- Sporting a 5-inch HD display, a quad-core processor, and LTE capabilities, Panasonic's latest two Toughpad tablets feel more like rugged smartphones than slates. The FZ-E1 runs Windows Embedded Handheld 8, while the FZ-X1 is an Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean) device.

Panasonic Toughpad tablets look a lot more like beefy smartphones (pictures)

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Like all tablets in its Toughpad range, the FZ-E1 and FZ-X1 are designed for rugged environments and will survive drops of up to 3 meters, and you can dunk them underwater to a depth of 1.5 meters for up to 30 minutes.

The Windows-powered FZ-E1 runs off a 2.3GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, while the FZ-X1 uses a 1.7GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 chip.

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Both tablets (or phones) will have 2GB of RAM, 32GB of onboard storage, LTE connectivity, an 8-megapixel rear camera, and a swappable 6,200mAh battery.

Are Panasonic's two new devices tablets or smartphones? I'm not sure either, though I'm leaning toward the smartphone side of things. I'll be keeping an eye out for them here at Mobile World Congress. Stay tuned.