Panasonic Introduces Toughpad FZ-M1 Tablet

By DE Editors

Panasonic introduced the latest member of its Toughpad family of rugged, enterprise-grade tablets. The Toughpad FZ-M1 is a rugged 7-in. fanless tablet with a fourth-generation Intel Core i5 processor. Running Windows 8.1 Pro, the Toughpad FZ-M1 can be incorporated into enterprise and government environments, the company says.

“Most tablets on the market today are designed to be ‘good enough’ to meet most users’ needs. But ‘good enough’ won’t cut it for a large portion of the mobile workforce, who need tools they can depend on in challenging conditions to get the job done without compromise,” said Rance Poehler, president, Panasonic System Communications Company of North America. “The Toughpad FZ-M1 is built for those workers. Its highly portable and compact size, power, connectivity and configuration options, and sheer toughness make it the ideal tablet to connect mission-critical workers of all types with the data they need to do their jobs at any time.”

The user-replaceable battery delivers eight hours of uninterrupted work, with quick-charging technology that reaches 100% capacity in just two and a half hours, the company says. An optional high-capacity battery delivers 16 hours of power, and an optional bridge battery enables users to switch out batteries without powering down the device.

The unit weighs 1.2 lbs. and is 0.7-in. thick. The fully-rugged design is tested to meet MIL-STD-810G specifications for drops (up to 5 ft.),  shock, vibration, altitude, humidity and extreme temperatures.

Configuration options include dedicated GPS; bar code reader; Ethernet or serial port; and a choice of near field communications (NFC),  SmartCard reader, UHF radio-frequency identification (RFID), or magnetic stripe reader.

For more information, visit Panasonic.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.