Semi-rugged workhorse of a notebook with very hi-res 1600 x 1200 screen
(by Conrad H. Blickenstorfer)

Of all of Panasonic's Toughbooks, the 51 looks least like one of those gleaming all-magnesium rugged machines, and most like a regular, standard consumer notebook. That's probably done on purpose, just so that this semi-rugged, magnesium alloy machine won't stand out too much in a crowd of generic Dell and HP notebooks. No one needs to know that the 51's hard disk is shock-mounted or that its magnesium case is 20 times stronger than plastic.

The 51 can be had in a basic version with a 1.66GHz Intel Core Duo chip and a standard XGA screen, or a much more interesting high-end version with a fast 2.0GHz processor and a glorious 1600 x 1200 pixel high resolution display with more than twice the resolution of an XGA. Both have a powerful 85 Watt-Hour battery. For security in corporate settings, the 51 can also be ordered with a SmartCard reader slot.

During its production cycle, Panasonic kept the CF-51 technologically updated, switching from M processors to the faster and more efficient Core Duos. Battery capacity, RAM and disk drive size were also updated.