The Toughbook is a rugged laptop manufactured by Matsushita Electric Industrial, known for its durability in extreme environments. It was designed for military use, but is also used by police, emergency services, and field researchers. Sacrifices in functionality have been made for reliability, but there are models available for casual consumers.
The Toughbook® is a brand of laptop manufactured by Matsushita Electric Industrial, a company based in Japan. Many Toughbook® fans are more familiar with the Panasonic brand under which the laptop is typically sold. As the name suggests, this laptop is built for serious use and the Toughbooks® can be seen in action in some of the most grueling and demanding environments in the world.
The Toughbook® design was born in response to the need for an extremely rugged and reliable laptop to be used in situations where ordinary laptops would fail, such as desert environments, arctic research facilities, police cars, field studies in biology and military installations among many others. The design places a heavy emphasis on rugged functionality and reliability, typically lacking the bells and whistles that come with laptops aimed at the casual consumer.
Toughbooks® have been set on fire, frozen, dropped from immense heights, soaked in water and even shot while in service. These laptops are so well known for their durability that Panasonic maintains a Toughbook® database of stories, cataloging all the ways laptops have been abused by their owners. These laptops are used by militaries around the world in environments ranging from submarines to the deserts of the Middle East and are also used in police cars, emergency medical vehicles and fire trucks. Biologists, archaeologists and others who rely on laptops for fieldwork also use Toughbooks®.
As you can imagine, the decision to prioritize reliable performance in a variety of conditions has led to some sacrifices in the functionality of the Toughbook®. Some models are very slow, for example, and laptops tend to be bulky and heavy due to their rugged exteriors. For field functionality, however, many have excellent sound and video cards for the purpose of logging data ranging from traffic disruptions to covert surveillance, and these laptops also have powerful wireless cards built in.
Like many pieces of equipment originally designed for military use, the Toughbook® has caught the attention of consumers. As a result, Matsushita produces a range of Toughbooks® aimed at the more casual consumer. These laptops are semi-rugged, lacking all the features that make their pro-grade counterparts more expensive and more durable. Some of these models are equipped with more advanced processors for faster performance, satisfying the desire to have a laptop with the famous Toughbook® brand without having to sacrifice functionality.
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