While Panasonic hasn’t been huge in the consumer space for a few years, it has been growing its presence in the enterprise space. One of the more popular lines in its enterprise brand is the Toughbook, a series of devices designed around being incredibly durable. These extend from Windows laptops to Android phones and tablets. Today, Panasonic announced the newest addition to this series, the Toughbook S1, a 7-inch Android tablet.
The hardware of the Toughbook S1 was designed to be one thing: durable. It has a full plastic padded body with a plastic display that seems hard to break. The entire thing was designed to be able to work in any environment, with a patented rain mode that can detect water going down the display and ignore it. It has a full MIL-STD-810H certification and can survive a 5-foot drop onto concrete, according to Panasonic.
One very useful thing Panasonic offers on the Toughbook S1 is a barcode scanner in either the horizontal or vertical orientation. It also offers a secondary full USB-A port alongside the standard USB-C port, if needed along with multiple battery options and LTE and GPS. This can be customized to match any customers needs.
The Toughbook S1 comes with Android 10, which is the standard for enterprise-grade Android tablets like this. Panasonic is offering support for as long as this device is on sale and customers of Panasonic Premier OS can expect around 5-7 years of updates. Panasonic is only going to update it to Android 12, but that’s because the enterprise market is much different than the consumer market. Panasonic will be working with software teams directly to support this device with whatever MDM or staging features your company may need.
This tablet is Panasonic’s newest inclusion into the Toughbook lineup of Android devices. Panasonic also has a 10-inch tablet and 2 different phones available in this lineup. None of these, including the new S1, are available for consumers to purchase.
Since this tablet is an enterprise device, you won’t be able to pick it up at your local electronics store. This is meant for IT professionals to buy in bulk for their respective organizations. The street price for the base model Panasonic Toughbook S1 is $2,499, but again this price will vary heavily based on the SKU ordered and quantity.
Post a Comment