Panasonic's Toughbook 53: Gets work done in any terrain

For road warriors who take their computers anywhere but office cubicles, you need a machine that can help you get work done, whether you're atop Mount Everest or supervising a construction site. Meet Panasonic's Toughbook 53, a 14" laptop designed to survive 30" drops on six sides, has a shock-resistant solid state harddrive that can be easily swapped out, an optional harddrive heater, and a spill-resistant keyboard. This machine has already passed nine US Military's environmental and engineering tests (MIL-STD-810G) so it can probably handle anything you throw at it.

Aside from its tough exterior, its innards also have some of the latest tech available. The 53 can run on either the i3 or i5 processor, has an optional 2-800 nit sunlight-viewable touchscreen (rather than just a normal LCD display), USB 3 and HDMI slots, as well as cellular connectivity (3G mobile from Qualcomm, which piggybacks on the Sprint and Verizon networks, with support for 4G LTE networks). There is also an optional a dual antenna pass-through for in-vehicle use in passenger cars and light-duty trucks, which is perfect for cops and other professionals who work in their vehicles.

The need for business users to stay connected everywhere seems to be an emerging trend, as the HP latest line of business laptops also provide out-of-box access to HP's pre-paid mobile broadband service DataPass, both of which were launched on Monday.

The Toughbook 53 starts at $1,599 for the i3 model, which will ship in August. The Toughbook 53 i5 model will retail for $1,899 and ship in June; the touchscreen version will ship in July and is available for $2,449.

Here are the other specs on the Toughbook:

• Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-2520M vPro™ Processor (2.5GHz, Turbo Boost up to 3.2GHz) or Intel® Core™ i3-2310M Processor (2.1GHz)
• Display: 14.0” High Definition (720p) LED 1366x768 display (touchscreen for the i5 model)
• RAM: 4-8GB RAM (i5 models) & 2-8GB (i3 model) at DDR3 -1333MHz
• Weight: 5.6 lbs. (i3 model), 5.8 lbs. (i5 model),  6.5 lbs. (touch model)
• Dimensions: 11.1” (L) x 13.4” (W) x 1.8-2.2” (H)
• Battery: Up to 10 hours battery life (i5 CPU models with Long Life Battery Pack); Up to 6 hours battery life (i3 CPU models with Lightweight Battery Pack)
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 a*/b/g/n; Bluetooth® v2.1 + EDR (Class 1); optional LTE 4G mobile broadband (Summer 2011); optional Gobi™2000 mobile broadband

With all its tougher-than-thou features, this Toughbook is hard not to love. What do you think? Would you want one of these for your line of work?