Panasonic Toughbook W2 Review

Anonymous Howard writes "For those of you who haven't heard about Panasonic's Toughbook W2, this hard to find laptop not only looks awesome but packs a serious punch for its size. Weighing in at 2.8 pounds with a 12.1" screen, this P4-M 900 Centrino based laptop is impressive. The drawback is its max memory support is only 512MB. However I think the laptop is absolutely gorgeous. Does anyone have any experience with one of these? Designtechnica gave it a 7 in their review. I tend to believe that 512MB of ram is a pretty limiting factor however."

Memory Limit?

[westyvw]

512 Megs a limiting factor? Really? On a notebook I would think that would be more the sufficient. Unlike a desktop computer, a notebook is less likely to be left on as long or to be used in a multitasking fashion. Even making movies music seems unlikely.

I am using a 1 gighz notebook right now with 512 megs or ram. I browse the web, do some music decompression (shn -> wav or vice versa) and cd burning, some light web work, and maybe some office apps.

I am using Linux and KDE and I am have never even hit 256 megs in use at any time.

Re:uh

[Kenja]

Well, its a tough book. Last I checked powerbooks where not water proof and couldn't survive being driven over in a truck.

The memory isn't the bottleneck.

[AntiOrganic]

Face it, you're not going to be rendering in Maya, encoding DVDs to XviD/OGM or editing 60,000x20,000 pixel images in Photoshop on a 900 MHz CPU; Unreal Tournament 2003 isn't going to suck up all that memory running at 12 FPS on the integrated Intel graphics. And given the screen size, your ability to multitask is limited, since only so much will fit at once, so unless you feel like leaving open 70 minimized windows for some reason, that won't be an issue either.

With some services disabled, Windows XP will run fine on 96 MB of memory and Linux/BSD will do with the same or less depending on your WM du jour. I can't see why this much memory would be needed on a machine designed with productivity and groupware in mind. The default 256MB should be plenty.

Sigh

[Judg3]

Yet again another "review" by a site which has very little information.

Basically it's the author's "feeling" about the notebook, a few pictures, some "testing" which means little to a typical laptop user and absolutely no "Print Article" button so I can bypass the "Hot Words" with advertising, side bar with advertising, top frame with advertising, and bottom frame with advertising.

They manage to stretch out 2 paragraphs over 5 pages. Yuck.

You'd get more information from Panasonic's website [panasonic.com] and their Toughbook W2 Datasheet (PDF) [panasonic.com] then you will at this site.

Re:This "toughbook" is nothing of the sort.

[randyest]

RTFA: it's waterproof. If water falling in those "spaces" won't kill it, your pop-tart crumbs won't either.

Purpose is key. Re:512 megs

[Forge]

This is not such a limiting factor. 512 Megs of RAM is far more than I need for the kind of work I would want to do on an ultralight with a mear 12" screan. I.e. That's not where I play games or edit graphics or rip DVDs. A desktop is used for that. Or a true desktop replacment like the 9 lb Dell Inspiron 8200 I am typing this on.

Playing videos, Listening to MP3s, Running a Web browser and most importantly; Terminal emulation software dosn't need 512 MB.

That last one is the single most important reason for an ultracompact. Sometimes I have to stand infrunt of a rack hooked to a network device via a Serial cable with my laptop on one palm while I type with the other hand. 9 lb starts to feal like 90 after a few minutes. 2.8 lb would take much longer to get there.

BTW: How is this significantly better than the Latitude X300 [dell.com]

weight

[Jeremy Erwin]

Powerbook G4 12": 2.1 kg
iBook 12": 2.2 kg
Panasonic Toughbook 1.29 kg

Re:More RAM = shorter battery life?

[Jeremy Erwin]

Just what I want to do when I get a new machine: engage in resource allocation games... A new machine should be fast enough, and equipped with enough memory, to run the latest application and operating system without bogging down.

Financially, buying an obsolete machine rarely makes sense.

Toughbook?

[anethema]

I dont get where the toughbook part comes in. Old toughbooks were built into briefcase style things, some (maybe aftermarket added, cant remember) had like honeycomb pattern stuff built into the case. You could run the damn things over. This thing, while pretty, doesnt look like it could withstand a 1 inch drop, nevermind a 5-6 foot drop like the old ones. If you operated that in harsh working conditions I really doubt it would stand up.

Like look at this one, couple years old:

Picture 1 [ebayimg.com]

Picture 2 [ebayimg.com]

It looks quite a bit tougher.

Re:uh

[Drakon]

what makes this any more gorgeous than a powerbook?

you have no taste.

the price is way too much for what it is as well. I think panasonic is shooting themselves in the foot with this one

Panasonic does not sell these to consumers. Or even resellers. They're sold to institutions who need them. Like construction companies, and military units. They're certified to withstand shit that very little else can stand. They're NOT overpriced for what they are