Digital Trends

Panasonic Toughbook R7

March 14th, 2008 | by Josh Norem

Ruggedness Testing

We did not perform any torture tests on the R7 because Panasonic doesn’t guarantee anything in regards to what it can withstand. According to the R7 website, “The R7 withstood 50kg (110 pounds) of weight, as well as a 30cm (11.8 inch) drop, in Panasonic's lab tests. While this is not a guarantee that it will withstand that in the future (and it is not guaranteed to do so), it's an impressive feat for a chassis this size.” If something says it’s “water proof” we’ll pour water on it, and if it says it can withstand a fall from 10 inches, we’d do that as well. But since there are no guarantees this time around, we abstained from testing Panasonic’s claims. We can tell you that our personal “feel” for the notebook is that its combination of low weight and rigid structure make it seem impervious to damage. We felt like we could literally throw it around and nothing bad would happen – it’s that light.

Conclusion

The Toughbook R7 is certainly a unique notebook in that it combines two characteristics one doesn’t normally see together – portability and ruggedness. We really like how light and portable it is, and its five-plus hours of battery life are great. This is the kind of notebook you could carry with you all day and never need to plug in. The keyboard is a bit too small for our tastes, but we suppose that sort of goes with the territory on a notebook this small. The price tag is a bit steep too, but once again these sub-notebooks are always expensive. It’s a niche product for sure, but a pretty cool one in our opinion. Plus there’s the extra geek cred of having Japanese characters on your keyboard, which is a great ice breaker on the bus or train.

Pros:

• Supremely portable
• Excellent battery life
• 11 color options

Cons:

• Expensive
• Keyboard is tiny