Panasonic Toughbooks
After a while in the desert climate and the occasional clumsy drop, my two HPs were toast. I debated getting another standard laptop and using a Pelican case, but figured it would still suck up dust anytime it wasn't in the case. Made for military, firefighters, EMTs, shipboard and others who need a laptop to use during adverse conditions, the Toughbook has a magnesium shell which is dust, shock and water resistant. All of the various connectors and ports are covered by dust- and water-resistant doors. There are fully-rugged, thicker field models, semi-rugged and the smaller, lightweight, thin "business" line, each with varying specs and options such as GPS, WIFI, Cellular links and specialized test gear.
If I had the money I would spring for one of the newer, thinner notebooks, but for my purposes, the CF-28 I bought on eBay has been great (I paid just $475 -- 10 percent of the list price! -- because it was surplus from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police). I work on movie sets a lot and it seems to shrug off all the abuse it goes through. Aside from the climate (Las Vegas) and getting banged around, spilling a beer on the keyboard is the most extreme environmental hazard thus far. I use a plug in module for wifi and bought an internal wifi chip. It also has a touch screen and pen-like stylus, so you don't need to use the mouse unless you want to.
I have no experience with any of the rugged laptops made by other companies. However, when I worked at the Army desert warfare training center at Ft. Irwin, the fully-rugged Toughbooks were used extensively by the soldiers in the field. I've also talked to a few cops here in Las Vegas who use them and have heard nothing but rave reviews. Plus, I know the company backs up what they sell: a friend of mine with a Toughbook had his motherboard fried after lightning struck near him and they fixed it for free.
-- Randall Robinson
Panasonic Toughbooks
$1,800+
(depending on model/configuration)
Available from BuyTough.com
CF-28 and others available on eBay
Manufactured by Panasonic
Favorite (15)
Dave
We have been using the fully-rugged line of Toughbooks for a couple of years now as in-field data collection laptops (survey, mapping, GIS, utility inventory, interior as-builts), and have had very few problems.
We find their durability and features to be superior to competitor Xplor by leaps and bounds, especially when it comes to screen appearance, battery life, and digitizer accuracy.
We had also experimented with buying "disposable" $500 laptops and just accepting the casualties, but the Panasonic Toughbooks quickly proved to be worth their initial expense.
rcjordan
My wife and I have both had the W2 for, well, forever in laptop years. Hers is the one with the big dent in the corner of the cover.
It's the only notebook out of a long trail of predecessors (of really good, namebrand laptops) that has sated me. In fact, the W2 is the first laptop I've kept long enough to buy a replacement battery for. I don't even look at new laptops on Gizmodo anymore, once you've had a Toughbook you can't go back.
My wife's a real estate broker and wanted to downsize from sub-notebook to sub-sub-notebook, so she purchased the R7 (9.0(W) x 7.2(L) x 1.6(H) about a year ago. Loves it.
Doug Faunt
I have a CF-W4, and it's served pretty well, but it cost $600+ to replace the motherboard when it failed quietly earlier this year. And there's at least one USB device that it (and a friend's similar machine) don't recognize. For other Windows XP machines do work with the device, so....
I still very much like the machine, though.