Slashdot Mirror

Two words:
Panasonic Toughbook

A couple of years ago my roomate was working at a jobsite for 14 hours straight. He finished up and loaded his stuff in his van and went home. The next morning he goes to get his laptop but it was not in the van so he figures it's at the office he worked at the night before. So he heads back to the office to get his laptop but it wasn't there either. He then heads home trying to remember what he did with it. On the way home driving on the interstate doing about 60 MPH he happens to see his laptop on the side of the road. He then remembers what he had done with the laptop last night. As he was loading the van he set the laptop open and running on the top of the van. The laptop flew off the van going 60 MPH open and running skidded on the pavement then into the ditch and it still booted up after he charged the battery. the only problem was a few bad sectors on the hard drive and a little plastic port cover that broke off. Oh and some deep scratches in the bottom. Thank goodness his company spent the extra money on the Panasonic Toughbooks.

PowerBook that spent two days at the bottom of the Amazon

Too bad it wasn't a ToughBook...I have a friend that works for a major university...the same thing happened to a ToughBook (fell into the Amazon), but the PHD that was using the notebook had his intern jump in and get it :)

The ToughBook came right back on...didn't lose any data at all...actually, the only difference between the military version of the ToughBook and the civilian model is the color...the military model comes in matte colors (black and various camouflage)...

I did not say it did 1920, I said 1080i. Here is the specs on the TV, I have a seprprate samsung tunner.

...and break after a week because the wire was too thin

It's funny you mention that as that's one of my greatest pet peeves. I have attempted several times to listen to the radio on my commute to work (I take a train), and acquired a little radio that hangs on a strap around my neck. A week into using it the included headphones busted due to a wire break near the L connector (right at the stereo), which while it does bounce around a bit surely shouldn't put any undue stress on something designed accordingly, especially given that it's the "sports" model. OK, so I go home and rummage through a drawer to find another pair of headphones that were included with another portable device a ways back. About a week later it developed the same issue. Another pair of headphones. Another bought pair of headphones. In 2 months I had four pairs of headphones develop wire breaks near the L connector (right where it connects to the radio). I had long ago foresaken portable radios for exactly this reason: Invariably they would get the symptoms where a side would cut out or be crackly, and some wire manipulation could temporarily get it back. Just drives me absolutely insane that such a fundamental design problem is so prevalent, and while over the short term it might encourage purchases (as people replace them), over the long term it leads to lots of people just giving up on the technology: I'm not wasting another $40 buying another pair of headphones with a shitty connector.

Regarding using headphones while playing games: That works so long as 3D isn't an issue. Quake 3 offers 3 dimensional sound imaging (actually shouldn't it really be 2 dimensional, with standard stereo speakers being 1 dimensional? I digress), so a surround system lets you hear that the guy is behind you to your left, etc.

Have a look at Panasonic's LiION webpage. This is consistent with the other battery blurbs I have seen. LiION batteries have a cycle count of ">500", which means that someone who charges their laptop every day will have a dead battery fairly soon. This is the cost of not having to lug around NiMH batteries, which weigh about the double for the same capacity. NiMH would have lasted about twice as long, but then nobody would have bought the laptop because it was too heavy.

I've been on a quest since two days ago to find an answer to a related question. What I wondered is "How cheap can I get a device with Tivo like functionality with no future costs?"

Option 1:
Baseline Tivo/ReplayTV: $200
Lifetime subscription: $250 (also note that the lifetime subscription only applies to this device - if you buy a new Tivo you need a new subscription)
Total: $450

Option 2:
Build your own. Assuming you don't care about size and form factor (which you probably do) you can just get a bargain basement PC. There are some 700-800MHz jobbies starting at $200 but these are pretty marginal in terms of being able to encode video to disk. So you probably want to step up to one of the slightly better $300 base PCs. Then you have to get a video capture card and remote control card. If you go really cheap, you can get both for about $100. Assuming you use free software, you can get a working system for $400. But this is on the extremely low end with no thought to asthetics or quality parts. I'd say you can get a nice looking, reasonable quality system for $650.
Total: $400-$650+

Option 3:
A Panasonic DVD recorder. You really need the one with a harddrive to do Tivo well but you also get a nice side benefit that you can record to removable media.
Total: $1000

Option 4:
Buy one of the many Media centers. The alienware shuttle is a nice one. Anyway, they all start in the same ballpark as far as cost.
Total: $1700

Given my analysis, a standard Tivo/ReplayTV is still hard to beat at $450 if you are strictly interested in the Tivo functions. If you build your own, you can get a lot more functions like MP3 jukebox, recording to removable media, etc...

Does anybody know of any other options?

Info on the Panasonic Toughbook 01.

Might be a little pricey but it does a really create job and does not require any service at all

Panasonic DMR HS2

Quality of new items seems to be lower than it used to be. I own tons of consumer electronics devices, way more than the average person, I'm sure. The things I buy now don't last as long. I've been through 3 dvd players in 4 years, and they were all over $150. Yet I have a set of speakers that are 12 years old (!) and still work perfectly.

There's also no point in fixing any of these items, everything is soldered onto one PCB board. If one trace comes loose... Time for a new unit.

Check out a Technics turntable...

Technics SL-1200 MK2

You'll find a pair of these in pretty much any club in the entire world. The design hasn't changed at all in over 20 years. It's a beautiful piece to behold, it's built like a tank. It weighs 26 pounds. And every single component, motors, tonearm, etc -- can all be replaced. These things are built to last.

This is how things used to be built. I can't think of anything new that I own that has the build quality of my turntables. And that's sad.

We've turned into a disposable society.

Wish I had mod points... "Diode Gradation" was exactly what I thought.

A quick Google search did reveal a paper on "Diodegradation of Cationic Surfactants", which looked promising because of the "cation" (cathode/ion) reference. Alas, no other references to diodes were included.

Searching on the words separately yielded a Panasonic CD Receiver, but no sites showed up with the term enclosed in quotes.

Whatever. Now, I should probably go read the article before I go any farther off-topic. No +1 bonus for this reply!

Replace your current notebook with one of these. It won't need "protection" like your current unit, and while it may be bigger than what you want, it'll also be tons more versatile to have the full computer mounted where you need it.

I still have one of those watches! Hmm... maybe it's time a buy a new one. The calculator watch I have is from Casio, I've only had to change the batteries maybe 3 times in the last 10 years. I think it actually locked up at one time when it's batteries were low.

• Replace the plastic watch band with a metal link wrist band. You will need a 22mm band, which is rare these days. For me, a roommate's brother had an old box full of wristbands, and I luckily found a 22mm black metal band. The plastic bands are crap and only last about two years before exceeding their limits of elasticity. With metal links you can bend them all around, and swap in more links if others go bad.
• Disable all beeping by switching to the calculator function and holding down the "Start/Stop" button for 2 seconds. This will make your battery last much longer than average. Also keep the use of light, alarm, and hourly chime functions to a minimum. I was able to get 5 years use on a single CR2016 watch battery.
• Replace the standard Panasonic CR2016 battery with a CR2025. Yes, it's a thicker battery but it can be done. The watch casing will be a very tight fit when you try to close it, but it will work with a little force. The CR2016 has a nominal capacity of 90 mAh, while the CR2025 boasts a nominal capacity of 165 mAh. They are both 3V and 16mm in diameter, so the only difference is the capacity of the battery and the thickness (1.6mm thickness for the CR2016, vs. 2.5mm thickness for the CR2025). I expect roughly 8-9 years out of the CR2025.
• Don't go swimming with your Data Bank. That's how I killed the first one when I was a kid. Ironically, the beeper it had wasn't working for years before that, and after submerging the watch the beeper worked again for a short while until the whole watch died.

They already have this done. A friend of mine brought one over one evening. Uses a touch screen lcd with an 11b interface to a brick with a PIII in it. He said police buy them, put the brick in the trunk and the touch screen display on the dash with suitable software. The brick is ruggedized for auto use. It's a Toughbook model 07.

Toughbook 07

Screen seemed a only a little bit slow, I would not recommend it for a LAN party but for a routine traffic stop or food order it looks OK to me. Win2K was the OS.

Hedley

I don't know of any TVs that support 1080p, which is what your describing. (Not that they don't exist.)

Usually 720p is the highest progressive scan available.

There's a fairly good description of progressive vs. interlaced at Panasonic, but it concentrates on 480p vs. 480i. (The basic idea is the same though.)

go to panasonic and buy one of these... screw messing with some locked in junk that will not let you archive...

HDD storage and then you can write it out to a DVD-R. why would you buy a Tivo other than being a few hundred cheaper.

I'm a TiVo fan though, so of course I would never recommend this television to anyone!

If this is so easy to do, why haven't the various consumer electronics manufacturers shipped DVD players with a hard drive on board?

Um, they have. Panasonic and others have made DVD players that can record to either DVD-R or internal hard drives. They also use the hard drives for PVR like functions.

It would certainly be an advantage to be one of the first to market with something like this, not to mention the hordes of geeks (like myself) who would be compelled to go out and get one immediately.

Go get it then.

Wow, I want one of those. :) (technical specs here btw).

Plays & records DVD-RAM, plays & records DVD-R, plays CD-R/RW, built-in 40 Gb hard disk for 52 hours of recordings... Hmm...!

$999.95 ($29.95 per 9.4 Gb recordable DVD-RAM disc for 240 minutes)

A bit expensive but it's one of those "I need" gizmos. :)

You can look at the info on it in English at http://www.panasonic.com/consumer_electronics/dvd_ recorder/dvd_recorder.asp

oh yea and Here is another

CDRW is too small. Yea yea, compression blah blah. In order for a movie to fit on a CDRW the quality is as bad or worse than VHS.

This on the other hand shows significant promise. DVD recordable, with a hard disk and some nice Tivo like features. Also, does MP3s etcetera...

I have a slick panasonic razor that gets charged right through the plastic by induction. (this link isnt the one I have, but I believe this charges the same)
Panasonic CatalogBR Then you could use your mouse anywhere, and just by using it on the mousepad or by leaving it on your desk when you leave, it would recharge. Why isnt this type of recharging technology used in more applications??

Actually, despite what the article says, the latest DVD-RAM disks don't require casing.

Furthermore, DVD-RAM has a projected lifespan of 100,000 read-write cycles, compared to about 1000 for DVD+R/-R. So it's really an attractive format and it'll be a shame if Sony doesn't include it in their combo drive.

Anyway, my main point is that all the HDTVs I saw... and I looked at a good number, could display 480i, 480p and 1080i, but definately not 720p.

That may have been true a couple months ago, but there are 3 manufacturers that make models that I know of, today, that display 720p either natively or by converting to 1080i.

The Samsung HLM437W, HLM507W, HLM4365W, HLM5065W
The Panasonic PT-40LC12, PT-45LC12.
The two Sonys KP-57WV600, KD-34XBR2 are some of many that can display 720.

To say that none can display 720p is blatantly false. The two DLP sets, the Samsung and the Panasonic, display 720p natively. The Sony's "downgrade" the 720p to 1080i. As for ABC, they are planning on broadcasting about 60% of their primetime programming in HD at 720p. I can't find the quotes on this, but you can google for it.

Several years ago, back when Comdex was still cool, I remember a Panasonic booth set up with ToughBook demonstrations. It looks like the product still exists, and they have a page dedicated to its MIL-STD-810F testing. It's not a marine standard per se, but it does cover shock, vibration, and exposure to both liquid water and excessive humidity.

Several years ago, back when Comdex was still cool, I remember a Panasonic booth set up with ToughBook demonstrations. It looks like the product still exists, and they have a page dedicated to its MIL-STD-810F testing. It's not a marine standard per se, but it does cover shock, vibration, and exposure to both liquid water and excessive humidity.

NPR had a story on rugged laptops in March. The reporter turned it over to the local kids for testing (hitting it with a baseball bat, running it over with their bikes, etc).

Good machines very durable - gel pack around hard drive to protect against shock (handy in rough seas) spill proof (lots of water around might be handy) - lots of other anti shock & durability features as well.

higher end models meet us military ruggedability requirements as well.

The 3 year 48 hour turnaround warranty and simply have to make a phone call to recieve international warranty coverage - handy since you'll probably be going places on your boat ;)

Toughbook Homepage.

The Panasonic Toughbook web-pages are here. No mention of salt-water environments that I can find, tho.

And as for sealing the lappy.. it's been done, it's just freakin' expensive.

My former (just graduated) high school had a Battlebots IQ team. They put up a website , which details their robot, E2, and the competition. They did quite well, winning 6 in the double elimination format. I didn't participate in this, but I was involved in the Panasonic Creative Design Challenge, a robot competiton open to high school students in the State of New Jersey. I reccomend this competition to interested students, since I won a two grand scholarship that is going toward my EE degree.

Their version of flash memory cards. Very small and thin, these are also used by the Palm m500/505/515's as an example. I have several of these small cards, from 16mb to 64mb. I also have a reader that allows me to mount them on my Mac OS X desktop.

We have been playing with one of these for a while and it is cool. 802.11b to the touchscreen display, runs Windows2000 or 98 (proprietary network so no linux) But the Panasonic guys said if somebody wanted 1000 of these with linux they would do it!

why don't they warm the toilet seat for those cold winter days.

Sorry forgot to include the link:


http://www.panasonic.com/computer/notebook/html/ 01 .asp

DVD-RAM discs cannot be read by anything except a DVD-RAM drive,

I agree with the bulk of your comment, but in fairness, Panasonic does make a real nifty portable DVD Player that plays ordinary DVDs, DVD-RAMs, and MP3 encoded CD-RWs, and they also manufacture cartridgeless DVD-RAM discs that, once recorded, are playable in some standalone home DVD-Video devices, and readable in some computer DVD-ROM players.

Rather than a pilot, try either the Panasonic Toughbook 07 or one of the machines from Saint Song. These provide modern (Pentium) processors, decent HD space, etc: as much as most notebooks and many light desktops. The problem is power: most machines require a fair amount of power (54W draw for the Cappaccino Gx1), which means a *lot* of batteries.

Why not get one of these. We had a Panasonic rep come in to do a demo a couple of weeks ago. It records like a VHS deck to DVD-R and DVD-RAM. You can even play back on a regular DVD player if you use a DVD-R.

It has a list price of $1499.95 but should be available for less than $1000 soon.

The choice of U.S. Army Special Forces and the Navy Seals, the Panasonic Toughbook.

Here are the design features and here are videos of the various abuse tests.

A couple of years ago, I saw a really cool video of an SUV driving over one if these while it was turned on. Outside of some scratches the unit fared well and continued to operate. Unfortunately, I can't find that video now.

The choice of U.S. Army Special Forces and the Navy Seals, the Panasonic Toughbook.

Here are the design features and here are videos of the various abuse tests.

A couple of years ago, I saw a really cool video of an SUV driving over one if these while it was turned on. Outside of some scratches the unit fared well and continued to operate. Unfortunately, I can't find that video now.

The choice of U.S. Army Special Forces and the Navy Seals, the Panasonic Toughbook.

Here are the design features and here are videos of the various abuse tests.

A couple of years ago, I saw a really cool video of an SUV driving over one if these while it was turned on. Outside of some scratches the unit fared well and continued to operate. Unfortunately, I can't find that video now.

There are actually quite a few network cameras available if you don't need a high-speed camera. Most have a built-in webserver, and several run a version of embedded linux. My personal favorite (and Ed's) is the Panasonic KX-HCM10 which can be had for as low as $329.99. The Axis and Samsung cameras are pretty cool too, if you can afford them.

Other cameras include the StarDot NetCam, which is also available from ThinkGeek (along with the Axis 2100 and 2120 cameras) and the IQeye cameras.

The real advantage to these is that you can simply plug them into your network and watch [whatever] through your web browser. My interest stems from my upcoming need to be able to work and keep an eye on a baby sleeping at the same time. There are, of course, baby monitors that come with little TV's or that plug into your television, and the annoying X10 cameras, but they all require a separate monitor and need extra gear to be viewed in more than one location. With a network camera, not only can we watch the kid from any computer in the house, but relatives can watch too, over the internet. And all I need to do to set it up is plug it in and set the IP address.

Take a look at this link to a Panasonic sweepstakes where they are giving away actual Nintendo Gamecube units with an additional TV/VCR/DVD Combo unit. Why aren't they promoting their own 'Q' units, which combined this technology into one unit?

Do any MP3 rippers support 5 Disc CD-Rom changers, like Panasonic's vintage(SQ-TC520N)? Ripping with x20 speed drive, 5 discs back to back, with FreeDB Table of Contents, using one PC 5.25" bay/power/IDE space, would reduce the malingering over the computer.
WinDAC32 V1.53 ripper reportedly has some CD changer support. Audio Grabber has two cd-rom drive support, similar idea, and much more common, but not a 5 CD changer. NEC and Nakamichi also sold (sell?) changers.

Panasonic just release a fine CD MP3 player.

I bought a Panasonic DVD-CV51 5-disc carousel DVD player recently. Has MP3 CD playability, for only $249 down at Best Buy. Burned up a 131-song MP3 CD, and piped it out of my 5.1 surround home-theater.

I was actually quite i
mpressed. I was expecting clicks, pops, crappy dynamic range, etc etc. However I ripped most of the tracks on that CD myself, using mid-high (192ish) quality VBR encoding. Some of the songs I did NOT rip myself that were encoded at 128kbps were obviously inferior, but as long as you rip them well, you should have a good bang for your buck audio experience.

Of course, YMMV. :)

All the help and information you need is here

Intermec has the Model 70 Pocket PC.

I believe I saw a somewhat industrialized iPaq recently, but I can't find it now. Probably not announced yet.

That would be Panasonic ToughBook, as in http://www.panasonic.com/toughbook. Yes, they are rugged as hell.