Panasonic has introduced the first rugged notebook -appropriately named Toughbook- based on Intel’s new Sonoma mobile platform. MobileMag loves rugged gadgets, especially putting them to the test to see if they keep on ticking. If you visit Panasonic’s Toughbook website, they drop it, shock it, throw it, vibrate it, and spill stuff on it. Boy are we envious!

The guts of the Toughbook CF-73 are housed in a rugged magnesium-alloy case and contain shock-and-vibration resistant hard drive. As for the display, it will feature a shock-and-intrusion hardened 13.3-inch daylight readable, anti-reflective, transmissive touchscreen at 1024×768 resolution.

Panasonic’s new Toughbook CF-73 will feature an impressive lineup of components;

- Intel Mobile 1.86GHz CPU with a 533 MHZ front-side bus
- Dual-Channel lower-power DDR2 memory
- Mobile Intel 915 Express chipset
- Enhanced Intel(R) SpeedStep Technology
- Mobile Intel 915 Express chipset family (formerly codenamed Alviso)
- Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 graphics core
- PCI Express Giga Bit Ethernet, USB/PCI I/O support
- Intel PRO/Wireless 2915ABG integrated wireless chips.
- GPRS/GSM support
- Analog Modem
- DVD/CDRW drive

The latest Toughbook will come in two different models priced accordingly.

CF-73SCUTSBM 256MB RAM (expandable to 1280MB), 60GB HDD for an estimated street price of $3500

CF-73SCVTSBM 512MB RAM (expandable to 1536MB), 80GB HDD for an estimated street price of $3750