What is a Toughbook? 04/16/2010

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A Toughbook is a specific brand of rugged laptop computers that are built like tanks.  Physically, these laptops have almost nothing in common with the Dell, HP, Sony, or Apple, that you are used to.  While some of these other manufacturers like, like Sony, might have their own version of a "tough" computer, they are not built anywhere near as strong as the Panasonic Toughbook line.  Toughbooks are the computers that police officers and fire departments use, because they are dependable.  There are different levels of "ruggedness" within the Toughbook line, but the Fully-Rugged family is definitely the one that I enjoy most, because they are capable of withstanding extreme abuse and are great to mess around with.  Other than Fully-Rugged, there are the Semi-Rugged, and Business-Rugged, Semi-Rugged being the next step down from Fully-Rugged.

Other than the differences in ruggedness, Toughbooks are separated by methods of input.  Almost all Toughbooks have the ability to operate like any other average laptop that you are likely to be familiar with.  However, there are two other common forms of input when using a Toughbook.  For one, there is the touchscreen.  Many Toughbooks make use of a touchscreen in order to receive input from it's user.  Usually, the models with a Touchscreen are also combined with the same keyboard and touchpad that you are more familiar with using on a laptop.  Beyond the touchscreen, there lies the digitized Toughbook Touchscreen.  I guess you could lump this together with the other touchscreens, but I believe that they are sufficiently different than a regular touchscreen and deserve their own category.  The difference between a digitizer version of a Toughbook and one that is a solely touchscreen is in the way that the touchscreen is used.  If the Toughbook's touchscreen is digitized, you have the ability to not only use your finger, but a special pen-like input device that can drastically improve your accuracy.

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First Post! 04/16/2010

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