Panasonic has unveiled a new line of ruggedized notebooks that claim to have a brighter screen, increased battery life and storage space, faster processing speeds, and enhanced user interface.

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Toughbook CF-19 Mk III

The Panasonic Toughbook CF-19 and CF-30 Mk III have a magnesium alloy frame and shock-absorbent damper encasing the hard drive. The company claims that the units can withstand knocks, vibrations and sharp temperature fluctuations, while surviving falls from up to 90cm.  The CF-19 screen rotates 180 degrees, and converts to tablet form.

Panasonic Australia’s Group Manager for Toughbook, John Wood said, “Panasonic has been manufacturing purpose built, reliable and rugged notebooks for over 15 years.  We continue to listen to our customers and improve on features to maintain our notebooks’ class-leading performance.”   

The Toughbook CF-19 Mk III has doubled its screen brightness from 500nit to 1000nit, while the CF-30 continues to boast 1000nit.  With a circular polarizing touch screen and anti-reflection coating, it is easier to read under direct sunlight, ideally-suited to outdoor use. 

Both models promise a battery life of 9 hours even with the increased screen brightness, making the unit even more mobile and functional.

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Panasonic Toughbook CF-30 Mk III

The new Toughbooks also come with a new feature called Convert Conceal mode. With just the touch of a button, the screen display disappears immediately, protecting sensitive information from being read by unauthorised persons.  This ensures information remains confidential, an important consideration for information-sensitive industries such as Defence or the Police.

Incorporating the new Intel Centrino Core 2 Processor, the Mk III is combined with Intel vPro.  The combination of Intel Centrino and vPro can help improve manageability, tighten security and speed up performance.  In addition the hard drive and RAM has been doubled in size giving users 160GB and 2GB RAM of space respectively. 

With enhanced security features both models feature the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2 chip which prevents unauthorised access, theft or loss of the HDD, while the optional fingerprint reader and/or smart card reader reduces the risk of insecure passwords.  They also feature a cable lock slot to physically secure the unit.

The Panasonic Toughbook CF-30 Mk III and Toughbook CF-19 Mk III are available now for $8,799 and $7,499 respectively.