Panasonic's Toughpad tablet range, unveiled in Cape Town last night, has been designed with enterprise and government in mind, incorporating durable features for conducting business in any environment.
The Toughpad is Panasonic's first product in the tablet space and consists of a range of three devices, including a seven-inch tablet.
Steve Lewis, from the Toughpad division at Pansolutions Holdings, says the device is not directed at consumer markets and seeks to service industrial environments, like the mining industry. "The Toughpad is used in the field where you can drop it from four feet and it can be handled quite a bit without damaging the unit."
Ryan Martyn, director of hardware distributor Syntech, says: "I think it is important that this product gets incorporated into a market where it can be used to deliver specific solutions. Looking at integration with software packages and specific markets, where they require software to be delivered in a means that is reliable, [the Toughpad] has a long battery life and can be operated in any environment."
Tough features
The Panasonic Toughpad FZ-A1 is a 10.1-inch tablet, running on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. It is daylight-readable, can withstand a four-foot drop and has an all-weather, dust- and water-resistant design. The Toughpad has dedicated GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth and optional LTE.
Panasonic says it will release a seven-inch Toughpad later this year that will also run on Android, with the same features as the A1, except that it will be able to withstand a five-foot drop. A 10.1-inch Windows 8 Pro tablet will also be released with the same durability specifications.
When looking at the array of competitors in the tablet market, Lewis says the "software is already out there and being used", but adds that it's difficult to beat the Toughpad's hardware. "You can take it straight out of the box, without adding any protective cover, it's daylight-readable; you can use it in any weather conditions where with other units you would not even take it out of your bag."
He adds that the seven-inch pad might have more competition as it's harder to make it as tough as the larger tablets.
Lewis says the Toughpad can also be enhanced with add-ons to ensure optimal business solutions. "There are car mount units, a bar code scanner with a smart card. So you're looking at a device that you could eventually use as a credit card machine. You can scan your own inventory, invoice and run through a credit card all on the same device."
Given the added hardware to ensure the Toughpad's durability, Martyn says the question of price versus quality has to be brought into the equation. "What we've noticed spending time overseas is that tablets, especially the new products coming onto the market, are really targeted at reaching a price point that the consumers will be happy to pay and that often comes in where the quality is compromised."
He says Panasonic has not compromised on quality with the production of the Toughpad. "The retail pricing of the Toughpad will come in at around R18 000."
While this is a steep price tag in comparison to leading market brands like Samsung and Apple's iPad, Martyn says it's important to remember it is an import product so the foreign exchange and currency fluctuations do have an impact on pricing.
The Toughpad also brings with it new possibilities of what can be done in terms of app development; with Martyn believing it can boost the local market. "This is a platform we feel can really deliver new technology formed and founded in SA, with companies here attending to a market which they otherwise wouldn't have been exposed to."
Panasonic says the Toughpad 10.1-inch Android tablet will be available to the South African market in the next two to three weeks.
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