Here's some clean design from Panasonic, adding a trio of Toughbooks to its laptop portfolio, the CF-W5, the CF-T5, and CF-Y5. All three have magnesium alloy cases and shockproof drives that can take the kind of beating road warriors routinely dish out, but they're not exactly tough enough for military use like some hardened notebooks we've seen.
But then those military-grade laptops don't look as pretty as these Toughbooks. Check out the CF-W5 ($1899) pictured here with its 12.1-inch antiglare LCD. It weighs just 3.1 pounds and has a 60GB hard drive. Too bad there's just an Intel Core Solo processor inside. The CF-T5 has about the same size and price but has a swiveling touchscreen. The upside of that weak processor? Both of those laptops have tremendous battery life, working for eight to 10 hours on a charge. They'll ship in October.
The CF-Y5 has a larger 14.1-inch display and Bluetooth, with RAM expandable to 1.5GB. It's $2199 and will be available in December.
Panasonic Announces Three New Toughbooks [Laptop Magazine]