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Product review: S1, the new 7-inch Panasonic Toughbook for transportation

September will be 25 years since the first Panasonic Toughbook entered the market and a new lineup of enterprise rugged mobile devices emerged. Most of the change to the lineup has happened during the past year, it seems.

Panasonic Systems Solutions Company of North America has developed a new spectrum of Android tablets that meet specific customer needs or “use cases” in transportation and other industries. The most recent product launch was in May with the S1 Toughbook. The 7-inch tablet comes with the Android 10 operating system for enterprise devices.

User impressions

Since the launch in May I have been testing the product with the help of my two boys, ages 11 and 16, who spent many hours this summer with  the device. As much as I wish they were using the S1 to do productive work, their testing consisted of using the device for gaming and entertainment.

My 11 year-old said the S1 ran significantly better than the consumer-grade Samsung tablet he uses. Comparatively, he said the S1 is more portable; its high-definition screen has better graphics; the apps never glitched; the batteries always lasted all day; and it and has significantly more storage space for games.

panasonic toughbook s1 back viewThe large battery pack on the backside lasts all day and can be quickly swapped between shifts, if necessary.He also said the Bluetooth connects faster to peripheral devices like wireless headphones. Another feature he liked was the Android 10 operating system. The enterprise version had “good swipe features” and was more user friendly than his consumer version.