Panasonic Touts Toughbook's Improved Dust, Water Ingress Ratings

Paul Graydon, vice president of sales at Northwest Computer Support, a Tukwila, Wash.-based solution provider, made a point to show O'Neil his 5-year-old Toughbook before her Tech Symposium presentation at the Xchange Government Integrator conference outside Washington, D.C.

O'Neil then mentioned Graydon during her address to the crowd of solution providers. "He lets his kids play with it, but he still keeps all his data on there too," O'Neil said.

After the speech, Graydon noted that he takes the Toughbook whenever he travels. "I've had other laptops, but I don't take them on trips. My kids have stepped on this, thrown it. I yell at 'em, but they still do it," Graydon said.

Meanwhile, O'Neil pulled out all the stops to show the reliability of Panasonic's notebooks, including the new H1 Mobile Clinical Assistant aimed at the health-care market. She used a water gun to soak one model to illustrate that Panasonic has increased its International Protection Rating for dust and water ingress from 54 to 65, meaning the products are "dust tight" and can withstand water jets.

"When you talk about how products are really being used, and you look at how they're used in mission-critical situations and how important it is to survive more than a couple dust particles and more than couple sprinkles of rain, we have raised the bar," O'Neil said.

O'Neil added that Panasonic may carry a higher purchase price than competitors, but its total cost of ownership makes it a good choice for notebook users in extraordinary environments.

"Right now, everyone has to make sure they have the best products that last the longest and cost the least in terms of TCO. It's all about bottom line now, delivering results. That's why reliability matters. You want to buy something to make sure it's going to work," she said.