Ever wonder what goes into making a Toughbook? These are not your typical notebooks so, as you probably guessed, they are not designed or built like that 15.4-inch boring book you are typing away on right now. I recently stopped by Panasonic’s Toughbook factory and design facility in Kobe, Japan and took some shots of the testing procedures. Read on to see what makes a Toughbook so tough.
Toughbook Y7
Before getting into the testing its worth mentioning that Panasonic’s notebooks come in three durability levels: fully-rugged, semi-rugged, and business-rugged. The durability level is determined by just how much punishment these systems can take while still operating. A fully-rugged machine, like the Toughbook 30, is designed to withstand more mistreatment than a semi-rugged machine, like the Toughbook 74, and testing has to be done to ensure this. Even Panasonic’s business-rugged notebooks, like the W7 and Y7, have to be able to take a drop or spill.
Incredibly, Panasonic claims a notebook return rate that is substantially lower than the industry average, which is generally put at about 20-22%, depending on whose numbers you trust. According to Panasonic their weighted average failure rate for Toughbooks is just 1.64%. They break this down to about 1% with the rugged models and about 4% on semi-rugged and business-rugged models.
Of course, models like the Toughbook 30 get put through tougher tests than the other products, such as this 360-degree shower using pressurized water:
The Toughbook 30 is designed so that is can be used in the rain and can stand up to a little bit more than some spilled soda. While the picture above is of actual Panasonic testing equipment in their factory, here is an impromptu test performed with the same model notebook:
One of the most important procedures for the Toughbooks is drop testing. Toughbooks are dropped on each face, edge, and corner a total of 26 times from a height of three feet using specially built machines. Here is an example of a Toughbook 30 dropped on its side and then successfully booting into Windows.
Other testing include altitude, humidity, temperature (extremes and shock), dust resistance, and all sorts of other things that might cause a notebook out in the field to fail. The most fun one of these to watch was the automated keyboard testing. Toughbook keyboards are built to handle 25 million keystrokes, so that have a custom rig to test that as well.
Here are a few CF-U1 UMPCs being tested in a test chamber. Units have to be able to withstand temperature extremes, but are also tested (in a different machine) for heat shock. This may seem strange, but in a real world circumstance this could happen if a worker was to go from outside on a hot day to inside a large commercial freezer to do inventory. The rapid change in temperature puts stress on the components so they test to make sure the notebooks can take it.
The result of all this testing, as well as Panasonic designing and building their own systems (rather than outsourcing these tasks like most companies do) is a product that Panasonic believes to be superior to the other notebooks on the market. By rigorously testing their products, designing them for real world usage, and factoring in lots of customer feedback to get from one generation to the next the Toughbooks represent something that is, if nothing else, significantly different from your typical notebook.
This is possible because they are less concerned about price than most manufacturers and they don’t have to worry about the fickleness of consumers or the retail market. That said, the heritage and reputation that the Toughbooks have built up over the years as well as the success they have had at trickling down their technology to the business-rugged models is definitely something that competitors, and buyers, should keep in mind. Their notebooks aren’t for everyone, but it’s nice to see a product that is meant to be moved around (as in, any notebook) be designed to take a drop or spill.
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