Panasonic Toughbook CF-U1 gets fully detailed, landing in August

Panasonic has been teasing us with this one for quite a while now but, as promised, it has now gotten fully official with its new Atom-based Toughbook CF-U1, including word of a price tag and release date. This one comes in squarely on the small end of the Toughbook spectrum with a 5.6-inch WSVGA display, which gets backed up by 1GB of RAM, a removable 16GB SSD drive (or optional 32GB), built-in WiFi, Bluetooth, and a whole host of optional add-ons, including 3G mobile broadband, GPS, a camera,a fingerprint scanner, and even an RFID reader (yet more add-ons are planned for later in the year). As is par for the course these days, you'll also get Vista Business as standard, with an XP "downgrade" option. If that sounds like it'll get the job done on your arduous adventures, you can look for this one to set you back a hefty $2,499 when it starts shipping in August.

[OneLove @ Jun 25th 2008 12:22PM]

brick.

[white_ultras @ Jul 9th 2008 10:32AM]

Yep, perfect brick for my tractor field monitoring.

[Doug @ Jun 25th 2008 12:25PM]

Yah! A new 2500 dollar HAMMER! WOOT!

[grull27 @ Jun 25th 2008 12:30PM]

LOL You win. I'm getting tired of these extremely expensive mini-pc's and shit.

[Flashpoint @ Jun 25th 2008 1:37PM]

is "landing in august" suppossed to be a pun considering it is designed to withstand falling impacts?

[tekdroid @ Jun 25th 2008 12:48PM]

See, this thing IS expensive, but I can at least see its value, unlike so many other doing-the-same-stuff-as-the-rest-only-less boutique models out there selling their thinness or small size and not much else.

*GPS built-in.
*2 batteries for up to 9 hours batt life (or so they claim)
*resist rain, spills, dust, vibration and 4-foot drops (though 'resist' might be open to debate here)
*carry handle! (yes please)
*completely fanless (nice of course)
*5.6inch screen, tho OK resolution for the size (1024x600) and apparently sunlight-viewable
*integrated 3G, fingerprint scanner

I see some value here. Not a huge fan of solid-state drives but seems like it's the only choice for a toughblock :) Definitely unique, and gimme that battery life baby!

[HelloHelloVertigo @ Jun 26th 2008 2:56PM]

Since this isn't a consumer product and given the markets these people go after, this is actually a pretty compelling product. It's not designed for the early adopters that waited in line all night to be one of the first to get an iPhone. This thing is designed for some guy working on the Alaskan pipeline in January (or other slightly less demanding environments).

[Shahryar @ Jun 25th 2008 1:53PM]

I would consider a variation of this and think there's a market out there of more people like me..

My primary phone is an N76 w/ T-mobile and my secondary phone is a Mogul w/ Sprint. I like to do strictly phone stuff (calling/texting) with my main phone and more PDA stuff with my Mogul. I don't do much calling on there but would like to keep this secondary number alive. If there was something like this w/ phone functionality too for Sprint - and cheaper than $2500, pref more along the lines of the Nokia Internet tablet in terms of price and size - I'd buy it.

The Mogul's slow and annoying (even with the latest official ROM update) and I'm not that efficient on it. But it's all that Sprint's got that's good (the Touch / PPC-6900 doesn't have a hard keypad or I believe that would be better).

[Clayton @ Jul 23rd 2008 11:31AM]

It looks like an update of the Radio Shack TRS-100 which came out 25 years ago (1983); but the TRS-100 had a better keyboard.

[Douglas Pace @ Jun 25th 2008 2:56PM]

Why would they put a numeric keypad in the middle of a querty keyboard? Maybe it makes more sense to the "guy in the field" that's maybe using it to punch in numbers all day to have those keys in the middle and not on the right. Like others have said, I'm not the market for this thing.

[madhaha @ Jun 26th 2008 7:02AM]

I think the layout is for thumb typing. Obviously it's too small for touch typing anyway so the idea would be the hold the thing with both hands and tap away from the corners. The numpad can also be worked with one hand instead of some annoying shift/function key setup. Vista has awesome handwriting recognition so the keyboard is mostly going to be for passwords and codes anyway.

Looking at the hard buttons you've got your scroll and zoom on your left hand leaving your right hand to jab at the touch screen as your mouse. Your right side hard buttons are for the 4 programs you use the most so your data input, your scheduler, your communications (IM/VOIP) and your note taker/reference.

Given that it does RFID, barcodes, fingerprints and has a webcam, I can see it being used by courier, warehouse monkeys and security types. It'd also be an awesome platform for hacking these technologies. Finally the dual battery system is genius. Sure it looks weird but it has a bunch of uses for people that use computers out in the field instead of gaming and watching movies.

[Fossil Boy @ Jun 25th 2008 3:47PM]

This is a very interesting product. I consult to a lot of field scientists and the idea of a fully-rugged, small device that runs Windows XP (or Vista) for specific programs will be quite welcome. I have looked at other UMPCs over the past year or so and none have held up to the tough Military specs. You do have to acknowledge that Panasonic makes great products, so maybe this one will be a winner.

[Zyph @ Jun 25th 2008 5:57PM]

1GB of RAM max is my deal-breaker. We're talking about Vista here...

[madhaha @ Jun 26th 2008 7:13AM]

Deal breaker? This is a $2500 UMPC. RAM costs $10-$20 a gb at the moment! Vista basic (and even Aero) runs fine on 1gb of RAM, especially if you're mostly doing data input and validation. Also you can use XP instead of Vista if you're willing to give up the UMPC specific UI, voice recognition (probably the fastest way to type without a bluetooth keyboard on this thing) and improved handwriting recognition.

[dodgerblues00 @ Jun 25th 2008 10:58PM]

we use these at work at AT&T and they suck donkey balls. THey always crash and freeze up on us and they're dead weight. We all hate them.

[Natalie - Group MObile @ Oct 16th 2008 4:40PM]

The Toughbook U1's are finally shipping out now. For those interested in knowing more about the Toughbook U1, check out: http://www.groupmobile.com/product.asp/sku=3486/dept_id=/mf_id=1/Panasonic+Toughbook+U1+Rugged+UMPC+%3Cbr%3E(shipping+Sept.+2008).html