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Laptops · Panasonic Toughbook

Panasonic Toughbook 40

6owners with an opinion
50%of verdicts positive
3/3positive/negative since 2024
0happy after 3+ years

Praised for durability and repairability; criticized for display and comfort.

What owners wrote

Likes it
I'm not gonna lie. Opening a massive Toughbook in a classroom full of puny Macbook Air and other ultrabooks felt GREAT, and worth lugging the 8-pound behemoth in my book bag. Plus, free rucking workout.
Doesn’t like it
I've taken apart a Toughbook to try to resurrect a dead hard drive. It was the most brutally annoying laptops I've ever had to tear apart. I have SO much respect for those machines, but if it's being sold without a HDD, be prepared for some pain getting it open and then back together again.
Doesn’t like it
I've encountered a few of these over the years. On the one hand, they are impressively rugged. And easy to repair. But the ones I have laid hands on had terrible displays, terrible keyboards, and terrible touchpads. And this was back when ALL laptop keyboards and touchpads where far inferior to what they are now. I'm sure some use them because they like the aesthetic, it would not be most people's first choice as a daily driver.
Likes it
I used both, but the thoughbook with Windows and the GETAC with Android. The touchscreen experience was much better in the GETACs I used. The thoughbook is good in the laptop format as linked but not the thoughbooks that are meant to be used as tablets - those die easier.
Likes it
Oooh, I finally managed to coax my manager into getting me a ToughBook at a previous gig, after I'd churned through a Dell Mobile Workstation or two a year doing field work. The ToughBook lasted years. True, the keyboard left a bit to be desired, the screen ghosted like you wouldn't believe and the colours were a bit, uh, off, not to mention ridiculous resolution - but killing the thing was essentially impossible. It is the Land Cruiser of laptops. Expensive, sluggish, heavy, indestructible. It even had a serial port (and, still does as an optional extra!) Nowadays, I spend much less time in the field and use a T14. Has served me well thus far. Oh, and I can actually carry it around without thinking twice of it.
Likes itHasn’t owned it
I love these still have home-pageUp-pageDown-end keys column. This is so great to edit texts, but every laptop nowadays mimics Macbook, which hasn't (and has a turnOff key between backspace and f12, which everyone cargocults from Mac too).
Doesn’t like itHasn’t owned it
Mostly useless. They are hideously expensive, the specs are really not great, the keyboards and displays are meh, and the trackpads are obnoxiously bad. They are for using in the field where damage is expected. So you might want that if your programming is tuning car ECU during races, or you do your programming on a sailboat while crossing the Atlantic. Otherwise they’re just underpowered back-breakers.
Doesn’t like itHasn’t owned it
> Certification: MIL-STD-810H, MIL-STD-461G, IP66 and optional C1D2 That's why they always seemed a bit overbuilt to me.. most field work does not require such rugged devices. They are made for military use and similar areas with crazy requirements. Few laptops exist that can check their boxes. If you design a laptop to these specs, you end up with a passively cooled rubberized metal box with an unpleasant keyboard.