Panasonic has a good tradition of making solid and rugged laptops, tablets and mobile devices under the Toughpad and Toughbook branding. Today that range gets two new products, the Toughpad FZ-E1 and FZ-X1 that are, believe it or not, explosion-proof mobile devices.
Obviously there’s also waterproof and dust proof, plus resilient to impact, so that’s no small feat. KDDI is going to sell these devices, with the FZ-E1 running Windows Embedded 8.1 Handheld and the FZ-X1 running Android 4.2.2. When we say explosion-proof we mean that these models can be used in areas where a single spark or overheated device is usually dangerous. That means oil rigs, big plants and chemical and pharma enterprises.
There’s a high sensitivity proximity detection touch panel in the mix, so the devices can be operated with gloves, which is also good for industry workers. The devices are contained in leather case bodies, to avoid any type of static electricity problems. Specs include a Snapdragon 800 CPU, a 720p 5 inch screen, 2 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage, plus an 8 megapixel camera and 6200 mAh battery.
Large volume 100 dBA speakers are included upfront and three microphones for noise reduction, too.
