While most rugged laptops are heavy and bulky, Panasonic’s new Toughbooks has given us a change of perspective of how modern rugged laptops can be, the Toughbook CF-54 and CF-MX4 aren’t just rugged but both are comparatively light to an Ultrabook, all thanks to its magnesium alloy material and efficient components under the hood.
The Toughbook CF-MX4 is a 12-inch business rugged laptop designed in a 2-in-1 form factor, which will give users the flexibility to switch their computing mode in tablet or notebook mode and allow field workers to be able to use computers in space challenging situations. In terms of hardware, the MX4 has a 5th generation Intel Core i5-5300U processor, a single RAM slot that supports up to 8GB of RAM, 128GB Solid State Drive, a 12.1-inch Full HD IPS 10-point touch display, and two batteries – a removable 4-cell battery and an internal (hot swap) 2-cell battery that delivers a total 13 hours of usage.
The CF54 may look like any semi-rugged Toughbooks you’ve seen out there, but you will be surprised once you pick it up from the table as it is one super lightweight device at 1.99kg and that’s even lighter than a standard 14-inch laptop. This machine has the same Core i5-5300U processor, supports up to 16GB of RAM with two RAM slots, a 14-inch TFT display with 1366×768 resolution, and has an 11-hour battery life with its 6-cell battery.
Last but not the least, the Toughpad FZ-X1 is an extremely durable rugged smartphone that is able to sustain the toughest drop tests and challenging operating temperatures despite of its ancient looking wallpaper you see on picture. The FZ-X1 isn’t going to pack any Snapdragon 810 processors of course, instead it comes with a really old but still capable Snapdragon APQ8064T 1.7GHz Quad-Core processor mated to 2GB of RAM, it has a 5-inch HD 720p display with glove and rain modes, 32GB of built-in eMMC storage with MicroSD expansion, an 8-megapixel main camera and 1.3-megapixel front camera, a huge 6200mAh battery that delivers up to 14 hours of continuous data access and can be fully charged within 3 hours when fully drained. Fortunately, wireless communications are still pretty modern with Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi 802.11ac, NFC, and LTE support.
Panasonic Business’s goal in introducing these devices is to allow its customers to be able to work on mission critical tasks with assurance, all thanks to the all new 5th Generation Intel Core processors and support from Microsoft, the new Toughbooks are now the most sophisticated rugged systems enterprises are able to buy, both the CF-MX4 and CF-54 comes preloaded with eitherWindows 7 Professional or Windows 8.1 Pro and can be upgraded to Windows 10 for free, the Toughpad FZ-X1 runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean out of the box and there is a Windows Embedded model available for purchase.
The new Toughbooks and Toughpad FZ-X1 are now available in Malaysia and can be purchased directly with Panasonic Systems Solutions Asia Pacific at the following Recommended Retail Price (RRP) excluding GST with a three-year warranty:
Toughbook CF-MX4: USD 2349.00 (RM9670)
Toughbook CF54: USD 1949.00 (RM8023)
Toughpad FZ-X1: USD 1499.00 (RM6170)
