Been scouring around from one of these for a while now and stumbled across this. Roughly £30-£40 cheaper than other eBay sellers. Says 300 in stock and seller has excellent feedback.
These are the rugged touchscreen ones so would survive a nuclear blast if you're in that line of work. Windows 7 as well, none of this new fangled windows malarky.
Top comments
SavageDonkey
24 Feb 1627#14
I have no idea why but I offered £100 for two and my offer was accepted... why did I do this?
topss to mittromney
24 Feb 168#9
Buy them all and build a bunker?
mittromney
24 Feb 167#7
Doubt the user would survive the nuclear blast.
aa64xyz
24 Feb 163#15
hduk addict need rehab
All comments (90)
emodan
24 Feb 16#1
The CPU in this was pretty pants in 2008 not sure how well it would fair compared to a linx 7 or similar modern Windows tablet.
twinkle
24 Feb 16#2
Apart from it looks cute I'm not sure what I could use it for that I don't use a tablet or phone for...good price though.
xxyy3 to twinkle
24 Feb 16#4
Windows solitaire?
brilly to twinkle
24 Feb 162#11
a hammer
MikeLondon to twinkle
24 Feb 16#19
Cute!!! I don't pick up electronics for the sake of them being cute ...... They have to be sexy.
New2Deals
24 Feb 162#3
jaykay1975
24 Feb 162#5
Unless you are on military field operations or an engineer working outdoors why would you possibly want one of these?
A sales rep once demo'ed a similar tough book to me by driving his car over it and throwing it across our car park.... it worked perfectly after all that.
zetecrob to jaykay1975
24 Feb 162#6
I've posted it for people in that line of work, not for someone wanting a tablet to use at home whilst watching Eastenders. Like you said, they're pretty indestructible!
mittromney
24 Feb 167#7
Doubt the user would survive the nuclear blast.
topss to mittromney
24 Feb 168#9
Buy them all and build a bunker?
fishmaster to mittromney
24 Feb 16#23
He would if he was wearing a suit of toughbooks though.
AndyRoyd
24 Feb 163#8
My ex-partner used to perform similar stunts, usually with my possessions. Only stopped when the ins co demanded I report something akin to criminal damage prior to any subsequent claims, although that was coincident with our parting. Happy days.
bargainhunter1059
24 Feb 162#10
These would be good for vehicle OBD diagnostics/programming with the interface of course.
M_z
24 Feb 16#12
Ruggedised sounds like something Cameron and Boris might have done at Eton. :confused:
alexq
24 Feb 16#13
I'm giving this heat. If you're looking for a very robust device you want to use outdoors with a sun-viewable display then it's not a bad deal. Caveats are the battery condition on such an old machine, and a processor that is near identical in performance to the original Atom N270 - the Atom Z530 does consume a little less power and can manage virtualisation!
mcek to alexq
24 Feb 16#27
my netbook runs windows 10 quite happily on an Atom n270 with 2gb ram.... and with the same screen resolution, so i imagine an upgrade would work ok.
SavageDonkey
24 Feb 1627#14
I have no idea why but I offered £100 for two and my offer was accepted... why did I do this?
twinkle to SavageDonkey
24 Feb 162#17
Because you truly are a HUKD'r...wonder what's the lowest they'll go for a single item....and why am I even interested?????
mittromney to SavageDonkey
24 Feb 161#36
In case one breaks.
cartergaz to SavageDonkey
24 Feb 16#50
I'll go halves if you want to soften the blow? :-)
plewis00 to SavageDonkey
25 Feb 16#54
They are auto-declining offers at £50/unit now. I suspect they are getting hammered with offers and had to put a stop to it.
OP - great find.
zomgwtfbbq to SavageDonkey
25 Feb 16#60
Very good deal -- thanks OP.
Don't worry -- nobody ever buys just ONE Toughbook without starting a collection of 'em, bud. This is going alongside my trusty, rusty old CF-19 Core2Duo Toughbook running Win7 Pro.
aa64xyz
24 Feb 163#15
hduk addict need rehab
forcedv
24 Feb 16#16
wonder if it comes with GPS software?
db72
24 Feb 16#18
Heat for the fangled malarky. Made me laugh.
vinil
24 Feb 16#20
We used to call it "brick"! Useless little kit.
lewissymonds
24 Feb 16#21
BARF
siri_uk
24 Feb 161#22
can this be used with rs232 or is it limited to the 1 usb?
Narkodrom to siri_uk
24 Feb 16#37
seems like usb only. if it would have rs 232 I would get one straight away
Wolfsbane2k
24 Feb 16#24
hmm. tempted to order 1 for some of the work I do. very tempting
Gollywood
24 Feb 16#25
BG Engineers use these. Cant see who else would want them!
djdaz01 to Gollywood
24 Feb 16#33
British Gas engineers use Panasonic cf-19 laptops, very different to this but still bomb proof.
dmcmsn
24 Feb 16#26
These any good for like car diagnostics or something?
DaytonaGrey to dmcmsn
24 Feb 161#28
I'd imagine ok if you're running VCDS or similar OBD diagnostics.
On the other hand even the military moved on from tough books. Must still be a market somewhere.
jamesphimister50
24 Feb 16#29
Do you think it will run kodi or champ manager 01 02.
made an offer of £60, lets see if its been accepted... ideal for leaving in boot of car instead of chucking a £1500 macbook about ..... shame no ethernet though.....
MIDURIX
24 Feb 16#35
And the cf-27 and many more. They don't just use one type of laptop.
jtd
24 Feb 16#38
BT also use a lot of CF laptops and bombproof yes good no, although that maybe the software the shiney **** load onto them.
Smartguy1
24 Feb 16#39
Its processor has a benchmark of 281. I am surprised it will run anything at all lol.
For the record my miix 3 with a benchmark of 906 struggles to run Op-com if you're looking at this for diagnostics. Not tried the miix with the ELM running Forscan yet.
I don't need one and probably wont use it... but I want one!
BlickersRon
24 Feb 16#43
Fantastic for mechanics using diag tools, much easyier than a laptop, without so much worry off dropping it! Thanks OP, purchased one.
Smartguy1
24 Feb 16#44
I was referring to car diagnostics which I was amending my post when you replied.
Narkodrom
24 Feb 16#45
yeah I get it
anyway i was running forscan on celeron m530 with no issues. So I suppose, atom will take it.
As regards to op-com, how exactly its lagging? I mean interface or connection problems?
pibpob
24 Feb 16#46
Get a USB serial port adaptor.
thecheekymonkey
24 Feb 16#47
for me its simply to run ftp / ssh / web / google drive apps, thats about it, so good deal
Smartguy1
24 Feb 16#48
Yes it is very laggy on the miix 3 running windows 10. Very slow to open and very slow to access or do anything when connected to the car. I only tried it once on a 2012 Corsa. Its fine on the wife's Acer in accessing the software but I couldn't access the Corsa's ecu to change anything. It just kept going back to the menu screen. Tried it on windows 7 on wife's acer to access my son's 2009 Astra and all good. So I could have two issues. The first could be the driver issue on the miix 3. I will delete it and re-install it and the other issue could be the Corsa. Had two goes at it now with zero results. The op-com is a decent unit. Not bought from ebay but from one of the guys from one of the vauxhall sites. It has up to 2014 software but doesn't like the Corsa.
BlickersRon to Smartguy1
24 Feb 16#51
Run VMware on it, and install XP for your OS, assign 1GB of ram to your VM and it will run a treat. If you wanna use Win 10 for other stuff just shut the VM down and regain the shared resources
wirdy
24 Feb 16#49
Wrong, the air force still use Panny toughbooks.
MarkT1967
24 Feb 16#52
I'm so tempted just for occom/vauxcom for the car! Seems like it will struggle as per the Lenovo Miix 300 which I was also interested in! Next!!!!!
Narkodrom to MarkT1967
24 Feb 16#53
I think to put win xp on this unit and it will be sufficient for most of diag tools, apart from star diag.
KingCampo
25 Feb 16#55
These are proper tough, we use Toughbooks in work. However, the spec on these is old so make sure it'll run your software well before you jump in.
forcedv
25 Feb 16#56
How would you connect one to a monitor?
splender to forcedv
25 Feb 16#58
USB
splender
25 Feb 16#57
USB to rs232 cable everywhere, e.g. Maplin
Franzkill
25 Feb 16#59
Ah ruggedised portable laptops designed to withstand an EMP. Brings me back to the 'Jericho' day :smiley:
We used the 9' ish version of these at a previous company and they were in excess of £1.1k,
forcedv
25 Feb 16#63
Would you not require a USB monitor though?
picorosco
25 Feb 16#64
Careful when you click buy. This is showing as 500 quid when I click on the link.
twinkle to picorosco
25 Feb 16#66
That's because they are OOS
splender
25 Feb 16#65
Bien sûr , monsieur, on the childhood learned principle square pin does not fit a round hole, you asked for "a" monitor which is an indefinite monitor. I think there is on the market USB to VGA/DVI/HDMI adapters which are expensive though and may suffer lag, for the money I would invest in a USB monitor.
forcedv
25 Feb 16#67
Just had delivery (damn quick)....couple of questions;
1. Where's the sim card slot?
2. How do we test the gps (just to make sure this unit actually has it)?
gifteddante to forcedv
25 Feb 162#68
Sim Card Slot is in the right-hand battery compartment, contact side down with cut corner inserted first.
Has anyone checked if the GPS works? I think these would be good for geocaching. Mine arrives tomorrow. Can understand why they have increased the price to £500 no one will pay that. I got mine for £55 which seems ok to me
jasee
26 Feb 16#71
These really are amazingly slow running W7, considering that they must have optimized drivers preinstalled and that they are actually twin cpu running at 1,6ghz. And it has 2 gigabytes of ram and is sensibly running the 32bit version of Windows 7.
Even turning down the resolution to 800 x 600, removing the indexing service and system restore doesn't help much. Mine has spent all night trying for the updates through windows update and still hasn't found them. Hopefully there will be some updated drivers there!
forcedv
26 Feb 16#72
Windows 10 is a free upgrade windows 7 owners.
Should run a lot smoother.
Question is, do windows 10 drivers exist for this?
jasee to forcedv
26 Feb 162#73
I don't think it will run any faster anyway. You'll have all those stupid apps running. The best thing would (probably) be to dual boot with some small version of Linux. Or just use Linux.
It may be just for my machine, but apparently you should have a bios password in the box. It wasn't. Mine was set to
Adm1nistrat0r
wildbilly1
26 Feb 16#74
My goodness these are slow! Paid £55 for it and I dont think I will be keeping it
sambartle_theone
26 Feb 16#75
Anyone put W10 on yet? Im just downloading the update on mine..
Probably worth checking against this list too as the batteries in these may be on it if they have ever been replaced: http://pc-dl.panasonic.co.jp/itn/info/announcement.html (It's possible the seller has checked but just in case)
I know it looks like a different device, but it does say the batteries fit the U1 and may have been used as spares..
Smartguy1
26 Feb 16#76
I think they were having a laugh when they found the processor for this. Technology hasn't moved on that much on 9 years were processors are concerned and it wasn't like these were cheap at the time. They could have easily put in a better processor for the cost they were to buy. This is the first panasonic thread I have seen without anyone mentioning the word 'Vestel' haha.
jasee to Smartguy1
26 Feb 16#77
I think the processor speed should be ok and it is twin cpu. I think it's the integrated graphics and even the wireless network card seems slow!
Still connected to Windows update! Normally there are 200-300mbyes after sp1, but it has only got one update so far!
dskdan
27 Feb 16#78
Mine was defaulted on 'balanced' in the power options, so I've set it for 'high performance', also in the graphics option, tick 'enable performance mode'..
It's made it a little quicker for me.. still estimating 4 1/2 hours battery..
Still taking forever in windows update..
Thanks op, paid £50 and turned up next day..
jasee to dskdan
27 Feb 16#79
Enabling performance mode seems to help a little, little bit. I still can't get it to run Windows experience index, it crashes quite early on :-( I left it for an hour of so, so I think it really did crash!
I've finally (this morning) installed all the security updates, there were only about three! So it must have been quite a recently updated version of Windows 7. It's using IE 11. There were two hardware updates one called D-vitec Camera and Ericisson Mobile Broadband GSM. The camera update has disabled itself. There were about 30 optional updates. I don't usually bother with those but some seemed to do with speed so I took them. There was netframework 4.6.1 and an early version. I try not to get netframework of any version unless it's required, because they take ages to install normally anyway. But the 30 of so others didn't seem to have any negative effects.
wildbilly1
27 Feb 16#80
Ive sold mine on ebay already. Totally shocking is all I have to say.
TattyCake
27 Feb 16#81
Mine arrived next day, in good overall condition.
Was very slow and laggy, so decided to format and reimage it myself with Windows 7 Pro, works a treat now or atleast as good as can be expected from the spec.
Install Virtualbox and attached a XP pro virtual machine, installed car diag software such as IDS and is all good, only assigned 512mb ram for the VM, may just up that a little.
That OP for the heads up, ideal for my needs
wildbilly1 to TattyCake
27 Feb 16#82
Im glad you are happy with yours. As far as I could tell mine arrived with a new install of windows on. The deciding factor for me is that I couldnt stream video so well from wifi which is what O do a lot of. I guess for diagnostic stuff it will be fine.
sambartle_theone
27 Feb 16#83
The problem with the speed is 100% the SSD... it's appalling.. I'm going to figure out how to swap it for something faster.. (oh and its faster with 10 as expected.. but still too slow, again its the SSD limiting it)
jasee to sambartle_theone
27 Feb 16#84
Unfortunately, the ssd connector is unique. There is the option to run from a usb drive in the bios if you think it's that. Theoretically you could run the o/s from one of those small usb sticks and just use the built in drive for storage. Personally, I think it's the graphics chip, if you try to run Windows experience index, the display crashes quite early on
The ssd nformation is interesting. he seems to have done it with the mk1 (we have the mk2). I don't quite see how it would fit in the mk2, the connector is in a different position. And the cost of a 250 gb 2" drive and parts is likely to be more than we paid for the toughbook!
The only reason mine is usable is because I have switched the resolution to 800 x 600, that's
nothing to do with the drive speed.
Flyingforfun
28 Feb 16#87
Windows Rating:
Calcs Per second: 2.2
Mem OP Per Sec: 4.3
Desktop Aero : 2.9
3D Gaming : 2.3
Data Trans : 5.9
Runs the experience tests no problems
sambartle_theone
29 Feb 161#88
I have a zif to msata convertor ordered (thanks for the instructible tip as i hadnt yet thought of that) as I already have an msata I can test it with... Having took mine apart the zif connector is definitely present but i was debating what to do to solve the problem.. so it looks like a good plan. I'm confident it will fix the problem.. The disk is not just slow.. It's also very inconsistent .. It's Terrible.
sambartle_theone
29 Feb 161#89
Oh and don't bother trying to unravel the cable round the ssd.. The connector on that is proprietary and I couldn't find a replacement other than the transcend it already ships with. It's a nightmare to get back in the case/caddy
pease
11 Mar 16#90
Hi. Anymore updates on the best way to use this computer. Whats the best windows os to install and best drivers to use with it thanks.
![Fresh Breakfast Meat Box (Using code) @ Campbells Meat [Haggis / Lorne Sausage / Bacon / Black Pudding & More]](/images/topics/208684_1.jpg)
![[Xbox One] Q. u. b. e: Director's Cut on Deals with Gold](/images/topics/208716_1.jpg)
Opening post
These are the rugged touchscreen ones so would survive a nuclear blast if you're in that line of work. Windows 7 as well, none of this new fangled windows malarky.
Top comments
All comments (90)
A sales rep once demo'ed a similar tough book to me by driving his car over it and throwing it across our car park.... it worked perfectly after all that.
OP - great find.
Don't worry -- nobody ever buys just ONE Toughbook without starting a collection of 'em, bud. This is going alongside my trusty, rusty old CF-19 Core2Duo Toughbook running Win7 Pro.
On the other hand even the military moved on from tough books. Must still be a market somewhere.
http://uk.pcmag.com/panasonic-toughbook-cf-u1/5906/review/panasonic-toughbook-cf-u1
http://uk.pcmag.com/panasonic-toughbook-cf-u1/5906/review/panasonic-toughbook-cf-u1
Think I will give it a miss. Interesting tho.
Review for this one is here :
http://uk.pcmag.com/panasonic-toughbook-cf-u1-u1-ultra/20687/review/panasonic-toughbook-cf-u1-u1-ultra
One you linked to was $2.5k when it came out, this one was nearly $4k.
For the record my miix 3 with a benchmark of 906 struggles to run Op-com if you're looking at this for diagnostics. Not tried the miix with the ELM running Forscan yet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKOM4di6WnE
anyway i was running forscan on celeron m530 with no issues. So I suppose, atom will take it.
As regards to op-com, how exactly its lagging? I mean interface or connection problems?
upload images
1. Where's the sim card slot?
2. How do we test the gps (just to make sure this unit actually has it)?
You can find the manuals HERE
Even turning down the resolution to 800 x 600, removing the indexing service and system restore doesn't help much. Mine has spent all night trying for the updates through windows update and still hasn't found them. Hopefully there will be some updated drivers there!
Should run a lot smoother.
Question is, do windows 10 drivers exist for this?
It may be just for my machine, but apparently you should have a bios password in the box. It wasn't. Mine was set to
Adm1nistrat0r
Probably worth checking against this list too as the batteries in these may be on it if they have ever been replaced: http://pc-dl.panasonic.co.jp/itn/info/announcement.html (It's possible the seller has checked but just in case)
Or here for the UK batteries.. http://business.panasonic.co.uk/computer-product/news-and-events/CF-H2-produkt-tilbakekalling
I know it looks like a different device, but it does say the batteries fit the U1 and may have been used as spares..
Still connected to Windows update! Normally there are 200-300mbyes after sp1, but it has only got one update so far!
It's made it a little quicker for me.. still estimating 4 1/2 hours battery..
Still taking forever in windows update..
Thanks op, paid £50 and turned up next day..
I've finally (this morning) installed all the security updates, there were only about three! So it must have been quite a recently updated version of Windows 7. It's using IE 11. There were two hardware updates one called D-vitec Camera and Ericisson Mobile Broadband GSM. The camera update has disabled itself. There were about 30 optional updates. I don't usually bother with those but some seemed to do with speed so I took them. There was netframework 4.6.1 and an early version. I try not to get netframework of any version unless it's required, because they take ages to install normally anyway. But the 30 of so others didn't seem to have any negative effects.
Was very slow and laggy, so decided to format and reimage it myself with Windows 7 Pro, works a treat now or atleast as good as can be expected from the spec.
Install Virtualbox and attached a XP pro virtual machine, installed car diag software such as IDS and is all good, only assigned 512mb ram for the VM, may just up that a little.
That OP for the heads up, ideal for my needs
I put win xp on it and it is much better now.
The only reason mine is usable is because I have switched the resolution to 800 x 600, that's
nothing to do with the drive speed.
Calcs Per second: 2.2
Mem OP Per Sec: 4.3
Desktop Aero : 2.9
3D Gaming : 2.3
Data Trans : 5.9
Runs the experience tests no problems