Content area
Full Text
There's no doubt that law enforcement equipment needs to be sturdy (that old Samsonite® commercial with the gorillas comes to mind here), but sometimes you don't need the absolutely toughest model in the store to get the job done. With laptop computers, not every item issued is going to have to weather a snowstorm or survive a tour in the sands of Iraq. Administrators, investigators, and people in less strenuous environments may not want to lug around a nine-pound ruggedized computer when they could get away with less weight in the briefcase.
The Panasonic Toughbook Y2 is a machine that would be at home in any corporate boardroom. It weighs in at 3.4 pounds, but still lives up to the Toughbook name by virtue of its full magnesium alloy case and shock-mounted hard disk drive. Outwardly, it's a clean-looking business machine that is only 1.3 inches thick and about half the weight of a fully ruggedized model.
The display is about the standard size for a business machine at 14.1 inches (measured diagonally), but has an exceptionally high screen resolution of 1400 χ 1050 pixels, with external monitor support of up to 1600 χ 1200 pixels at 16 million colors. That is just about as good as you are likely to find in any standard business machine. The keyboard is full-size, which makes a world of difference for people used to desktop machine keyboards.
One feature I found to be especially endearing was the placement of the optical drive. Most laptops, ruggedized and...