ToughBook FZ-G1: Ideal for warehouse use

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6 Mar 2015

If you saw last Sunday’s Top Gear, you’d have seen the (not so) intrepid international rescue team of Clarkson and May set out to rescue Hammond from the frozen Rockies in Canada. But did you spot the tablet they were given to take along on the trip?

It was no ordinary tablet. Basically due to the way Clarkson drives, no standard tablet would have survived the trip or more importantly carried on working at 20 degrees below zero. This was the Panasonic ToughBook FZ-G1 which is fully rugged, drop proof, water proof and tolerant of extreme ranges of temperatures, just the sort of thing to make sure it survived a typical Top Gear trip.

Panasonic ToughBook FZ-G1

Naturally we couldn't resist taking a ToughBook outside with a bottle of water to test if it really was water proof — Obviously we couldn’t resist taking a ToughBook outside with a bottle of water to test if it really was water proof

The ToughBook is built with a magnesium frame, Gorilla Glass II screen, flexible components that won’t crack and is also fully waterproof – you leave it in a bucket of water overnight and it’ll still be working the next morning. In fact if you really want to you can use it whilst it’s in the bucket of water but what’s more of interest you can also use it when wearing gloves, and they don’t have to be those special touch screen gloves, the ToughBook will work with your normal working gloves.

There are a ton of accessories for the ToughBook FZ-G1 but the one that caught my eye is the bar code reader, that makes it the perfect Windows 8 tablet (i.e. you can run your favourite multi-channel management software) for the warehouse. It’ll survive the normal rufty tufty abuse which quite frankly would result in lesser tablets being rendered useless, plus you’ve not got to rely on Android or Apple IOS with the associated software limitations.

These tablets are not low cost, but you pay for quality. At the time of writing you can pick up ex-demo units for around £1000 and the good thing is they’ll probably last a ton longer than any other tablets you use.

ToughBooks are built to last and whether you’re bar-code scanning inventory for stock checks or outside accepting deliveries in the rain, the one thing you can be confident of is that the ToughBook won’t be bothered about getting wet, cold or dropped even if you are. It won’t even mind you keeping your fingers warm by wearing gloves!