Panasonic Toughbook CF-S10

The Panasonic Toughbook CF-S10 ($2,449 list) is a semi-rugged laptop with the mobile businessman in mind. It may not have rubber bumpers on every corner, like the fully-ruggedized Dell Latitude E6420 XFR ($5,612 direct, 4 stars), to protect it from the kinds of accidents you may encounter on a construction site or in a military zone, but it will serve the executive that wants to be able to move from the board room to out in the field. The Toughbook CF-S10 is well armored, with a shock-mounted hard drive, a spill-resistant keyboard, and a TPM security chip and Intel Anti-Theft tech installed.

Design
The Toughbook CF-S10 features a magnesium alloy casing, with a black lid accented by a small silver lining on the top lip, and silver on the rest of the body. At 1.5 inches, it's a little thicker than a traditional, consumer laptop like the 1.04 inch-thick Samsung 300U1A-A01 ($699.99 list, 3.5 stars), mainly because its frame has to make room for the mounted hard drive (more on that later) and handle up to 220 pounds of pressure. Its weight is still under the three-pound mark?2.96 pounds to be exact?and is on the lighter side when compared with other 12-inch laptops, like the 4.15-pound Lenovo ThinkPad X220 Tablet ($1,579 direct, 4 stars) and 4.3-poundHP Elitebook 2560p ($1,299.99 direct, 4 stars).

Its 12.1-inch screen displays in 1,280-by-800 resolution, a different ratio than the standard 1,366-by-768 resolution found on most laptops. Basically, it's no higher or lower than the standard resolution, just a different way of arranging pixels. The screen features anti-glare treatment as seen on other Panasonic Toughbooks like the CF-Y7, making it readable in direct sunlight. The keyboard is slightly less than full-size and its keys are in the traditional style rather than the chiclet one seen on laptops like the Elitebook 2560p and MacBook Pro line. The tighter typing experience was easy for me to get accustomed to and it was comfortable to boot. The trackpad may be something different than what your used to, sporting a circle shape rather than a square one. Its shape also contributes to its interesting way of navigating up or down a page: you circle your finger clockwise or counter-clockwise to scroll up or down rather than using the "two finger multi-touch" function equipped on most laptops.

Features
This 12.1 inch laptop may be small, but it still finds room for a DVD-RW drive underneath the right palm rest. Its other features include a USB 3.0 port, VGA and HDMI video outputs, two USB 2.0 ports, an audio and mic jack, an Ethernet jack, and a telephone jack. The Toughbook CF-S10 also features several wireless connectivity options, like Bluetooth 2.1 to connect wireless peripherals, 802.11n Wi-Fi, and Gobi 3G mobile broadband that will allow you to stay connected almost anywhere. The Windows 7 operating system is 32-bit, rather than the 64-bit version seen on most laptops. The 32-bit version shouldn't affect performance within the business space, but gamers or professional media editors will want to steer clear.

Security features abound in this laptop, from the case lock slot that allows you to physically lock your computer down, to the Computrace theft protection agent in the BIOS. There's also a TPM security chip and Intel Anti-Theft tech installed. The 320GB hard drive is shock-mounted to help prevent damage to the disk from vibrations on the road or when picking it up. The drive also spins at a slower 5,400rpm (as opposed to the faster 7,200rpm ones). The only thing that could have been better is a solid-state drive inside, like the 256GB SSD found in the Dell Latitude E6420-ATG ($3,348 direct, 4 stars), as they aren't susceptible to the cracks and damage that spinning drives are. Of course, the flipside is that they come in lower capacities and are significantly more expensive.

Performance
The Toughbook CF-S10 comes equipped with a 2.5GHz Intel Core i5-2520 processor and 4GB of DDR3 RAM. Against other similarly configured laptops, like the HP 2560p, the Toughbook CF-S10 lagged behind in performance. In PCMark 7 it garnered a respectable score of 2,164 points, just 476 points behind the HP 2560p. Even in Cinebench R11.5, the Toughbook (2.01) couldn't match the Editors' Choice Lenovo ThinkPad X220 ($1,299 direct, 4 stars) (2.82), which came ahead by a significant margin. Benchmarking aside, the Toughbook CF-S10 will load web pages, boot up applications, and allow you to work with ease?it's just not as fast as the competition, which takes away from its overall score.

The one major performance test the Toughbook CF-S10 came out on top was the MobileMark 2007 battery test. Its 84Wh 6-cell battery lasted 9 hours 7 minutes. The only laptop that came close was the Lenovo ThinkPad X220's 63WH battery (6-cell) with a time of 8 hours 40 minutes.

The Panasonic Toughbook CF-S10 is a solid machine when it comes to handling day-to-day office tasks and it'll keep your data secure for years to come. However, if performance is your main concern over security, then you should definitely consider the Lenovo ThinkPad X220?$1,150 less than the Toughbook CF-S10?and combine it with something like a WiebeTech ToughTech Secure Q hard drive to back up your data. If performance and security are of equal concern, the Dell Latitude E6420-ATG will give you a faster Core i7 processor with the rugged business look, but it'll cost you $899 more.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Panasonic Toughbook CF-S10 with several other laptops side by side.

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