The Panasonic Toughpad A1
Panasonic has unveiled two new Android tablets that can withstand extreme temperatures, drops, dust and water.
The 10-inch Toughpad A1 will be available first and the 7-inch Toughpad B1 will follow. Both tablets have been designed for business and government users, particularly for those working in extreme conditions.
The Toughpads have been built to withstand drops of up to 4 feet. They can cope with temperatures between -10C and 50C. They are also dust and water resistant. Panasonic posted a YouTube video demonstrating one of the devices’ durability.
The Toughpad A1 has a 1.2GHZ dual-core processor and 16GB memory with a microSD slot for expandable memory of up to 32GB. Its 10.1-inch XGX multi-touch screen is anti-reflective.
Along with this, its security is embedded at a hardware level, with hardware and software encryption, enhanced VPN, dual factor authentication and device management. According to Panasonic, this makes it compliant with FIPS 140-2 for US government use and HIPAA for healthcare environments.
The Toughpad A1 runs on Android 3.2 (Honeycomb), giving the tablet access to apps from the Android Market. It can also access the Business AppPortal, a business-focused app store with offerings such as Mobile Device Management, security and virtualisation.
It also offers a stylus and active digitiser for flexible data entry while on the move, along with signature capture and handwriting recognition functionalities.
The Toughpad A1 will be out in spring 2012 in the US, starting from US$1299. The Toughpad B1 will be available later in 2012.
Laura O’Brien 
