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Panasonic's Toughbook CF-30 gets gnawed by tiger, stomped by elephant and 187'd
In a whirring round of hurt that only a dear friend we know simply as Congmasta could deliver, a team of his irreverent cousins got ahold of Panasonic's Toughbook CF-30 to see just how far the envelope could be pushed. We already discovered that said machine was plenty tough for the average adventurer, but Forbes' tests prove that this bad boy is tailor made for maltreatment in the field. Somehow, the machine survived a round of Diet Coke to the keys, a few chomps from a white tiger, an elephant's playful attempt to extirpate it and even a single .22 slug through the lid. After the torment concluded, the CF-30 still managed to boot, and while that hole in the LCD was certainly a nuisance, it didn't stop the rest of the pixels from lighting up and trudging onward. Tap the read link for all the gory details, photographs and video, but seriously, don't try this at home. Or anywhere.[Image courtesy of Schim Schimmel/SchimmelSmith Publishing, thanks Vipul]
Panasonic intros ToughBook CF-30 and CF-19
While all those little pansy laptops have been getting busy with Core 2 Duo for quite a while, Panasonic is just now dropping a Core Duo processor into their flagship ToughBooks, but they're still looking pretty dang Tough, so we'll go easy on the teasing. Both laptops sport "record breaking" brightness, with 550 nits in the CF-19 and 1,000 nits in the CF-30, supposedly the brightest LCD ever to be stuffed into a laptop, so neither laptop should be much trouble to read outdoors. The new CF-19 (pictured) follows up the Pentium M CF-18 with a 1.06GHz U2400 Core Duo processor, 80GB HDD, 512MB of RAM (with room for a handy 4GB total), a 10.4-inch XGA touchscreen in regular or Tablet PC configuration, EV-DO or HSDPA WWAN, Bluetooth 2.0, a/b/g WiFi and an optional GPS and fingerprint scanner. They've stuck with the same form factor, which measures 1.9-inches thick and weighs 5 pounds, though the standard battery life has been bumped up to 7 hours. The CF-30 (pictured after the break) matches its swivel-screen sibling quite well, though the luxury of a 13.3-inch XGA touchscreen, 1.66GHz L2400 Core Duo processor and slot for extra battery or disc drive will really cost you in the size department: the laptop measures 2.8-inches thick and weighs 8.2 pounds, while "only" managing 6 hours of battery. Of course, the main point of these things is their magnesium alloy cases, sealed keyboards and ports, and shock mounted screens and hard drives which makes them quite drop-kick ready, and jacks the price to $4,700 for the CF-30 and $4,200 for the CF-20. Both laptops should be out this December.
