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Panasonic ToughBook Testing Facility Tour
An anonymous reader writes "ToughBooks are considered by some to be the most resilient of all notebooks. So how does Panasonic ensure that their line of indestructible portables are just that? In a recent tour of the Kobe plant in Japan it was discovered that 1000's of ToughBooks are destroyed each year in pursuit of the most rugged systems. Soaking, electric shock, heating and electromagnetic radiation are among the many methods of torture used."
They have any openings for QA Testers?
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I don't see a curious four-year-old being employed in any of their tests. I'd like to see how one of these stands up to crayons and peanut butter sandwiches.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Even with toughbooks the single biggest problem with portable computers is screen brightness. In direct sunlight lcd screens are not practical. I speak from expirence beacause I developed a business application for the tablet pc. I have recieved plenty of feedback from customers about how hard it was to use them in the field.
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.... (after all it is 11 pages) Try surfing here for some quick hits on how their notebooks are tested and what standards they meet.
s t.asp
http://www.panasonic.com/business/toughbook/df_te
If they weren't so bloody expensive, I'd get one. It looks like it would survive the real world quite nicely. If only all notebooks were built to HALF of what these are built to survive.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Why would anyone want to pay 30% more for an equivalent product?
Why does Sony charge so much money even though nearly 100% of its products is now assembled in low-wage China? Panasonic still tries to build its products in high-wage Japan.
Getting on an airplane with one of These
can panic the TSA morons quite fast.
The thing looks like a bomb from the TV show 24.
At minimum you look like a spy or someone who is not doing good things.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The other maker of hardened laptop / PDA's is Itronix. I've got an old Itronix laptop that's built like a brick. Both Itronix and Toughbooks (particularly the later) are popular with police and fire depts. Fire depts. are very hard on laptops. They use them for things like communications, looking a dept. databases (fire inspection notes), info on hazardous materials,etc. I've heard of one fire chief who likes to test a vendor's notebooks by tossing them across the room. He's not very popular with sales reps.
I got my Itronix used (years ago) on E-bay. It has a 'Sprint' logo on the cover. Apparently was used by field service techs.
[Insert pithy quote here]
From TFA:
Every dominatrix should have one.
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I've never considered buying a Toughbook. It's cheaper to buy two (or three) equivalent "regular" laptops, and swap out the hard drives every time one is destroyed. Combined with decent backups, this is all that most Toughbook users really need.
$4000 laptop is too expensive for me, sigh.
This post climbed Mt. Washington.
You can take the computer away from the four-year-old. Your dad will want to try "one more thing".
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
the toughbook-30 looks fantastic in bright direct sunlight as it has a correct reflective LCD instead of a standard Laptop screen, IF ordered correctly.
Can you order it without the correct screen? The Panasonic site makes it seem like it's standard.
Most places do not buy the right gear when it comes to toughbooks because their accounting department craps their pants when they see the price.
If so, Amazon has it listed for $4,169.95 which doesn't seem unreasonable, considering it's not hard to order a Lenovo ThinkPad for that much. I'm sure the specs aren't as good (fast/big/bells/whistles) but they're both 'high-end' notebooks, just with different requirements docs.
Now, how are the Linux drivers? I understand the DoD uses them in this fashion, so I'm guessing 'good enough'.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
we have been using them for over two years for some of our users, and have found them to be not so tough. Connectors come loose, screens crack and backlights fail. Thinkpads have proven much more reliable.
Give users something and tell them it is tough and they will break it by being wreckless.
Give users something and tell them it is fragile, there is a good chance they will treat it reasonably.
Better to give a rugged notebook to someone who needs a rugged notebook due to the work that they do and tell them that it is not indestructable and that they should handle it as carefully as their job permits... Then it should last a reasonable amount of time.
Just my 2 cents worth.
-- The universe began. Life started on a billion worlds...
-- Except on one where stupidity was there first.
I worked at a company where they kept losing toughbook hard drives. They are not cheap to say the least because they reside inside a gel-suspension. Come to find out the techs were laying the toughbook at eye level on top of 15000 watt generators for extended periods of time monitoring the SCADA system. There's only o much vibration any hard drive can take...
The drop testing machine that's located at the Osaka R&D facility is one of only eight in the world, but unfortunately it wasn't working on the day we visited.
Things just arent built to last these days . .
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No good. Notebooks don't have testicles.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Sorry, but that's ridiculous. Thinkpads have nice hard disk protection, but drop an open one on the floor and the screen and hinge are DEAD.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Saw one take a dive off of the top of a moving patrol car, onto asphalt (moral of the story: don't leave laptops on top of cruisers). Popped a few things out the side, but everything slid back into place, and it booted right up. Dunno about long-term abuse, but I found that test pretty impressive. For organizations such as those, I can easily see how the extra cost for a Toughbook would be worth it. You'd make it back within a few months with the amount saved by not having to replace components and entire units all the time.
I used to use IBM Thinkpads. In fact; I went through four of em in as many years. Hinges broke. Power connectors broke, plastic case parts broke. And don't ask about the number of times I almost dropped one.
After buying a Toughbook 3-1/2 years ago; I have not had one single problem. The laptop industry's dirty big secret is not that laptopls need to be ruggedized for real-world use but that most laptops are flimsy and are designed so that they are prone to break under normal use. Most have a very slippery, low-profile shape; but no handle. This often leads to the unit being dropped or being set down hard.
Most users do not need ruggedized laptops. We do need laptops built well enough to be used by real people in the real world.
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