Gadget & Tech News

Panasonic has been teasing us with this one for quite a while now but, as promised, it has now gotten fully official with its new Atom-based Toughbook CF-U1, including word of a price tag and release date. This one comes in squarely on the small end of the Toughbook spectrum with a 5.6-inch WSVGA display, which gets backed up by 1GB of RAM, a removable 16GB SSD drive (or optional 32GB), built-in WiFi, Bluetooth, and a whole host of optional add-ons, including 3G mobile broadband, GPS, a camera,a fingerprint scanner, and even an RFID reader (yet more add-ons are planned for later in the year). As is par for the course these days, you’ll also get Vista Business as standard, with an XP “downgrade” option. If that sounds like it’ll get the job done on your ardous adventures, you can look for this one to set you back a hefty $2,499 when it starts shipping in August.