14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that Panasonic has finally decided to refresh its lineup of rugged portable computer systems, and has announced today three new models that will become part of the company's Toughbook series. The three new models include the thin-and-light F8, the ultraportable W8 and the T8. At the same time, Panasonic has revealed that its F8 business-rugged Toughbook notebook is the world’s lightest 3G-ready notebook with a 14.1 inches wide display and an internal optical drive.
“Panasonic Toughbook business-rugged notebooks are engineered for the truly mobile professional. We have designed these notebooks to offer industry-leading portability, durability and wireless connectivity – a necessary combination for today’s workers on the move,” said Kyp Walls, director of product management, Panasonic Computer Solutions Company. “Reliability is an issue that is coming into the mainstream with a lot of talk about computers being ‘rugged’. While many vendors appear to be making moves in the direction of improved durability, most business notebooks are still seeing annual failure rates in the double digits.”
All thee models have been designed to take advantage of Intel's Core 2 Duo processor, with the W8 and T8 models featuring the Core 2 Duo SU9300 clocked at 1.2GHz, while the F8 comes equipped with the Core 2 Duo SP9300, clocked at a good 2.26GHz. The Toughbook W8 and T8 boast 1GB of RAM (expandable to 4GB), a 120GB shock-mounted HDD, 12.1-inch XGA TFT active matrix color LCD (with a maxim resolution of 1024 by 768), TPM security chip, wireless 802.11 a/b/g/draft-n and Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity, and Windows Vista Business operating system. According to Panasonic, both these Toughbooks (W8 and T8) can deliver approximately 7 hours of battery life, which should make them reliable products for all those business users out there.
The business-rugged Toughbook F8 also comes with 1GB of memory, a shock-mounted 160GB HDD, integrated DVD multi drive, wireless 802.11 a/b/g/draft-n and Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity, and Windows Vista Business OS. The notebook weighs 3.7 lbs, and delivers approximately 6 hours worth of battery life.
The two W8 and T8 12.1-inch Toughbooks come with an estimated street price of $2,099, while the F8 will be priced at $2,499. All three models will become available starting November 2008.
