Matsushita to roll-out durable laptop series

SEOUL, Korea -- Matsushita is planning to release durable laptop series T7, R7, Y7 on October 19 and W series on November 16 in Japan market.

(Picture: W7 series 'CF-W7B')

It features a magnesium alloy which gets little damage even when it falls from 76cm height. It also adopted Intel SantaRosa platform and waterproof keyboard. Price to be confirmed.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (Panasonic) has refreshed its Toughbooks and aiming for a big jump in international sales of the computers over the next three years.

The Panasonic Toughbooks need no inroduction in the rugged PC market. Panasonic aims to ship 7.5 times more rugged PCs outside Japan by 2010 than it did in 2006. In Europe alone, the company is aiming for a ten-fold increase in shipments.

The new 7-series machines, aimed at corporate users, are beefier than the current 5-series machines and can survive a fall from a greater height. The new models can be dropped from 76 centimeters - the height of an average desk - while switched on and still work, according to claims made by Panasonic. Its current Toughbook models for the corporate PC market are rated for a 30 cm drop but only when switched off.

The 76-cm claim was backed up at the news conference as the laptops were dropped numerous times without any problem.

Panasonic also demonstrated a new irrigation system in the keyboard that can funnel water through the machine and out of a drain hole in the base. It can handle up to 200 milliliters of water - about the amount in a medium-sized glass - without the notebook experiencing any problems. Nice!

The four new laptops are based on Intel's Santa Rosa platform. One of these rugged notebooks will be available in Japan only. The specs of the new 7-series Toughbooks are way better than the current-gen models. They have double the memory of their predecessors, at 1GB, and the hard-disk capacity is one-third larger, at 80GB, than in the previous models. They all include 802.11 a/b/g wireless LAN but the draft 802.11n WiFi remains to be supported.

Specs, Pricing and Availability Dates:

• W7: 12.1-inch XGA display, Core 2 Duo 1.06GHz U7500 CPU, 1GB of RAM, 80GB hard drive, 802.11a/b/g, ¥250,000 ($2,169), available November 16th
• T7 (pictured): 12.1-inch XGA display, Core 2 Duo 1.06GHz U7500 CPU, 1GB of RAM, 80GB hard drive, 802.11a/b/g, ¥220,000 ($1,909), available October 19th
• R7: (Japan Only) 10.4-inch XGA display, Core 2 Duo 1.06GHz U7500 CPU, 1GB of RAM, 80GB hard drive, 802.11a/b/g, ¥205,000 ($1,779), available October 19th
• R7 Premium Edition: 10.4-inch XGA display, Core 2 Duo 1.2GHz U7600 CPU, 1GB of RAM, 80GB hard drive, 802.11a/b/g, 205,000, available October 26th
• Y7: 14.1-inch SXGA+ display, Core 2 Duo 1.6GHz L7500, 1GB of RAM, 80GB hard drive, 802.11a/b/g, ¥270,000 ($2,343), available October 19th

The CF-T7, CF-W7 and CF-Y7 will be launched in Europe on Nov. 27. The CF-W7 will cost €1,950 ($2,760), the CF-T7 will have a €2,100 price tag and the CF-Y7 will be €2,170.

North American and Asian prices are yet to be announced. Launch dates will be around the same time as those in Europe.