Panasonic Will Offer An Upgrade For Toughbook C1 With More RAM, Faster CPU

Panasonic's Toughbook family has always been tough, but it's about to get even tougher. Or, at least more powerful. The Toughbook C1 has been a proven contender for the company, and it has certainly been around the block a time or two. And now it's coming around again, this time with increased RAM, more hard drive capacity, and improved battery life. And that's just for starters. There's also Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, optional GPS and an optional Gobi2000 3G mobile broadband module from Qualcomm. All that, of course, is wrapped up a tight, rugged package that's meant for the field.

It remains the world's lightest 12.1-inch convertible tablet PC, and this new model holds a 320GB HDD, up to 12 hours of battery life, 2GB of RAM (up to 8GB is supported), and a speed 2.50GHz Core i5-2520M vPro processor. It starts up around 30% faster than the prior model, too. The whole thing weighs only 3.28lbs., which is mighty light for a rugged notebook. There's even a spill-resistant keyboard, which protects against liquid spills of about 6 ounces. The 12.1" LCD has a 1280 x 800 resolution, and is available with a choice of multi touch and digitizer screen or gloved multi touch screen and an anti-glare screen treatment.

In the United States, the upgraded Toughbook C1 is expected to be available in July 2011 from authorized Panasonic reseller starting at an estimated street price of $2,599. Not cheap by any means, but given the beating it can take, it's probably worth shelling out for this instead of buying replacement after replacement.