Buying A Used Panasonic Toughbook

Categories: Articles, Travel Computers
Written on Thursday, December 13, 2007

Let’s talk about buying a used Fully Rugged laptop computer for expedition travel purposes. The most common manufacturer, and really, the leading manufacturer of these things is Panasonic with their Toughbook line. Some of the basic features of the Toughbooks include:

Gel packed casing for the hard drive. It is heated for extreme cold conditions, and can sustain repeated shocks and dropping
Waterproof
Dustproof
Magnesium alloy case
Daylight readable touchscreens
The computers fold up into small cases with closing clasps and built-in carrying handles
Designed to MIL-STD-810F specification

They have two basic models to choose from, in the Fully Rugged category: a full-size notebook, and a tablet PC.

The following table summarizes the different models over the past few years.

Click for Listings	Model	Notebook/Tablet	Processor	Max RAM	Screen	OS
	CF-18	Tablet	Pentium M (900 MHz – 1.2 GHz)	1.5 GB	Digitizer/Touch	Windows XP
	CF-19 (current)	Tablet	Intel Core Duo (1.06 GHz)	4 GB	Digitizer/Touch	Windows XP/Vista
	CF-27	Notebook	PIII (300 MHz – 600 MHz)	512 MB	Normal/Touch	Windows 2000
	CF-28	Notebook	PIII (300 MHz -1000 MHz)	1 GB	Normal/Touch	Windows 2000
	CF-29	Notebook	Pentium M (1.2 GHz -1.6 GHz)	1.5 GB	Normal/Touch	Windows XP
	CF-30 (current)	Notebook	Intel Core Duo (1.66 GHz)	4GB	Normal/Touch	Windows XP/Vista

Tablet Versions

The CF-18 and CF-19 are really light-weight (about 4 lbs), especially for a fully rugged PC. In exchange for the light computer, you give up an optical drive and you get a small 10.4″ screen. For mounting into a vehicle, the smaller screen might be just right. The tablet versions come with

10.4″ Active Digitizer or Touchscreen
9 Pin Serial port
All have built-in WiFi – some have A/B/G some only have A/B

Optional Bluetooth
Optional Rubberized backlit keyboard
Optional GPS
Optional CDMA/GPRS Wireless (Sprint, Verizon, Sierra, etc)

I used to wonder about how well the screen would hold up since it can swivel 360 degrees and lay flat – these kind of hinges tend to be weaker than a standard double hinged screen. However, Panasonic has done a very good job of using strong components and making the system strong enough to last.

Active Digitizer versus Touchscreen

The CF-18 and CF-19 tablets come with either an active digitizer or a touchscreen. A digitizer uses a special pen that communicates with the screen, while a touchscreen is sensitive to different inputs from the tip of a sharp object to something dull and blunt like your finger. You can change the sensitivity of most screens depending on what you want to use for an interface. Because it uses a special pen, I would not want a digitizer model when travelling – things like pens go missing! Anyhow, geekset.com has done a really good video demonstrating the difference. Watch it!

Notebook Versions

The notebook versions started quite a few years ago. I think they go back as far as a CF-25, but these are so rare and won’t support most available operating systems anymore. Practically, the CF-28, CF-29, and the current CF-30 are the 3 models you can choose from. Ebay has always got a healthy supply of used CF-28s and CF-29s.

The full notebook versions are much heavier, but feel even more robust than the tablets.

Backlit Keyboards

Now these are an amazingly cool feature. Being able to see the keyboard at night is extremely useful – working on the laptop in a tent is pretty tough when you can’t see the keys! However, there are two types – one comes as a rubberized keyboard and one is a standard chicklit style keyboard. The rubberized models are better for durability and are waterproof, but they are a lot harder to type on. The chicklit style can break like any other keyboard but they still are reasonably watertight, just not as much as a rubberized one. On the tablet models (CF-18 and CF-19) backlit keyboards only come as rubberized. The backlit is an option on all Toughbooks – not every model has them. See the photos below for the different styles of keyboards.

Memory

Don’t worry about how much memory is installed in one of these things. Currently you can find a 512 MB chip on Ebay for about $40. It’s an easy upgrade, just a panel to unscrew from the bottom and replace the memory.

Hard Drive

Hard drives range from 40 GB to about 80. However, you can easily purchase a standard hard drive from any computer supply store – current laptop drives are about $100 for 120 GB. Don’t worry about the special protective case – it’s a separate piece from the actual drive. Just open the box and replace the existing drive with a new one. It’s an easy install, and should be no problem.

Built-in Bluetooth and Wireless

If you plan on using Bluetooth, say for communicating with a GPS, or wireless, you need to think about it a bit. If it isn’t built-in you can always buy a PCMCIA card, or a USB style add-on. However, because the ports are sealed with dust covers, the cover lies open while the accessory is plugged in. Eventually it will break off. My preference is to get them built-in.

Existing Model Numbers

Panasonic has a great on-line tool for checking the features that a Toughbook came with. Go to the Toughbook Configuration Site – you need to use Internet Explorer – to see what the model you are looking at really comes with.