Panasonic intros 7-series Toughbook systems

Panasonic today introduced a new line of Toughbook computers, the 7-series. These notebooks fall under the company's "business-rugged" category, which means that they lack the safeguards of the more serious Toughbooks, but still have a variety of protections; these include magnesium-alloy cases and chassis, shock-mounted screens and hard drives, and flexible internal connectors. Each notebook also comes with an 80GB hard drive, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0, and optional HSDPA or EVDO Rev. A cellular.

Of the new machines the most powerful is the Y7, a 14.1-inch model with a 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of RAM, and a super multi DVD drive. The W7 is a 12.1-inch notebook that makes the switch to a 1.06GHz, ULV Core 2 Duo processor, extending battery life to seven hours. Lastly, the T7 is a 12.1-inch touchscreen system with an identical processor to that of the W7, but which manages to push battery power to nine hours. This comes at the expense of any sort of optical drive.

The Y7 is already out at a price of $2,449; the W7 and T7 will be out in December, each at a cost of $2,099.