Panasonic Toughpad FZ-G1 review

DROP TEST

The entire tablet is designed, tested and certified to withstand abuse. The touchscreen is surrounded by a thick bezel that protects it should you drop the Toughpad screen-down without any risk of damage. It’s certified to be resist shocks when dropped up to 120cm, and is water and dust resistant in accordance with IP65 the Ingress Protection standard. To protect against water and dust, every port and connector has a tightly sealed rubber cover. The Toughpad’s magnesium alloy chassis is the toughest we’ve seen on a tablet, and has a protective plastic rim that surrounds the front edge and corners of the tablet. The tablet is also designed to withstand a far wider temperature range than your average laptop, with a rated operating range of between -10 and 50-degrees centigrade.

The Toughpad FZ-G1 has, in the time we’ve had it, been dropped both on its back and corners several times, been loaded with 100kg of weight, run under a tap for 15 seconds and bashed around in a cluttered backpack. Its battery popped out in one of our drop tests, but the tablet booted without complaint once we reinserted it.

As well as being nigh-on-indestructible, the FZ-G1 is also incredibly adaptable. The default specification has a USB3 port, HDMI and 3.5mm audio outputs and a six-cell battery that provides around eight hours of battery life. There are also a number of optional configurations, including a 3-megapixel rear camera that can also function as a barcode scanner for form processing and item tracking, and a SIM card slot. 3G support, which is present on our review sample, means you can be online almost anywhere and means you don’t have to depend on wireless networks. Indeed, 3G support could be a vital feature for anyone who works away from the office on a regular basis. The tablet’s integrated speaker is surprisingly good, with very clear reproduction of both music and vox. This makes the Toughpad well suited to video conferencing.

There’s also a “flexible configuration port” that you can specify with one of several different hardware options. Our FZ-G1 was configured with a Gigabit Ethernet port, but you could have a high-quality GPS module, a USB2 port, a microSD card reader or a serial port. Other options include a smart card reader and a larger 256GB mSATA SSD. The disk is accessible under a screw-on cover at the back of the tablet, but it and the battery are the only user-upgradeable parts, not even the memory slot is accessible without opening up the entire chassis.

The price of the Toughpad varies somewhat depending on which options you add. Also available are accessories such as hand and carry straps and a desktop cradle, making the toughpad easy to use both on the move and back at the office. Third-party vehicle mounting kits are available for those who do most of their work out of a van. We were surprised to find that the standard battery only lasted for six hours in our light usage test, which might be a problem if you are using it off-site, but changing its battery is simple – it clips into the back of the tablet.

CONCLUSION

The Toughpad FZ-G1 is a brilliant bit of design. It’s immensely durable, very powerful and massively customisable. You could feasibly run an entire business from a single Toughpad by connecting it to a monitor and Bluetooth input device while working at the office, mounting it on a vehicle when on the road and carrying it with you on site. However, although it very much earns five stars for design and technical merit, its range of features isn’t going to be required by every small business. If you require its rugged durability and customisable port, then it’s head and shoulders above every other tablet on the market. It’s also a fair bit more expensive than other tablets and hybrid laptops, so it’s important to consider how it will benefit your business before you buy.