Designed for demanding customers like the military, police and utility companies, Panasonic's new Toughbook 40 – internally dubbed the 'ultimate Toughbook' – brings new levels of modular configurability to the fully rugged laptop space.
Built around a magnesium alloy chassis and carrying the requisite rugged credentials – IP66 rating for dust/water resistance, MIL-STD-810H temperature, humidity and vibration testing, and 1.8m drop tests – the 14-inch Toughbook 40 has a modular clamshell design with no fewer than seven expansion areas that allow for a total of 70 different configurations, Panasonic says.
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As well as the ability to swap out the main battery, RAM and SSD drives, there are four areas – left and right sides, rear and palm-rest – that can accept a variety of options. These include a second SSD and a second battery, an optical drive, a smart card reader, various combinations of ports and a fingerprint reader. If that's not enough, there's a fully featured desktop port replicator available too, along with an ecosystem of accessories including a vehicle mount and a four-bay battery charger. Panasonic claims the Toughbook 40 will last for 18 hours on one battery and double that with two batteries installed.
The 3.35kg Toughbook 40 is a Microsoft Secured-Core PC running Windows 11 Pro on 11th-generation Intel Core i5 or i7 vPro processors with 16GB of RAM (64GB max) and 512GB of quick-release SSD storage (2TB max). Graphics are integrated (Intel UHD or Iris Xe Graphics) and the display is an FHD touch screen with auto-detection of touch mode (pen, finger, gloved or wet hand) and up to 1200 nits brightness for outdoor viewability.
Here's a run-down of the Toughbook 40's specifications:
As well as multiple configuration options and accessories (which, Panasonic says, can include things like custom-built mounts for military vehicles designed to withstand very serious vibration), the Toughbook 40 has a one-touch Concealed Mode function designed for military operations that disables light and electronic transmissions. Mobile broadband support is currently 4G LTE, with a 5G option due in summer 2022 (you can also specify no mobile broadband). Panasonic has also built an audio subsystem suitable for the rugged/outdoor market, with plenty of volume available from the stereo speakers and four microphones that benefit from AI noise cancellation.
Check out the Toughbook 40's expansion areas:
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