Is dropping a Panasonic Toughbook during the middle of a CES press conference embarrassing, or the best product demo ever?
Panasonic's Toughbooks have always been ultra-rugged warhorses, but at least the competition could titter about how bulky they are. Until the Toughbook S9 struts into the room: every bit as sturdy, with lightest 12.1-inch frame (with optical drive) around.
There was a time when the word "tablet" invoked an entirely different vision, of keyboards and hinges and people working on stuff and, well, not this. The Toughbook C1, Panasonic's 2000s-style 12.1-inch rugged convertible tablet, remembers those days well.
In today's Remainders: Snow! Stay in and watch the video podcast infinite recursion on YouTube or go outside and toss the new Panasonic Toughbook tablet in a snowbank (it can handle it). Crowdsourced snow shoveling in DC and more!
Most of us have no need for Panasonic's Toughbook-30: Its specs are unremarkable and the 13.3-inch laptop weighs over 8 pounds. But then, our mortal laptops could never survive the ridiculous, almost cartoony beating Forbes gave it.
Deep in the northwest corner of Kobe, Japan, there's a factory hidden away among green rice paddies, and sleepy farming villages of tiled roofs. If you were to travel here, to Takatsukadai-the middle of nowhere-you'd find Panasonic's Toughbook plant quietly making notebooks with the world's lowest failure rate. Well,…
Panasonic may have "announced"