Today, Panasonic announced the release of it new ruggedized notebook, the Toughbook CF-U1, which presents a world premiere, as it is the first durable Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC) equipped with Intel’s battery-saving Atom processor.

The notebook was designed for various purposes, mostly related to the work activities outside the office and a bit more extreme environments such as military related tasks, law enforcement, inspections, fire and emergency medical services, construction sites and so on. It has a continuous life span of about 8 hours, thanks to the two batteries used, each offering about 3 to 4 hours of life. Either one can be replaced without shutting the system down.

The reason why it is called a ruggedized notebook is because it has been tested for overcoming several possible mishaps such as being dropped directly on concrete from about 4-foot away and it also passed with flying colors the endurance tests for rain, dust and vibrations.

It has a 1.3 GHz Intel Atom powered system with 16 Giga Bytes of solid state drive and one GB of RAM. It features a 5.6-inch sunlight-readable display with 1024 x 600 pixels, weights 2.3 pounds and its measures are 7.2 x 5.9 x 2.2 inches.

It also offers Bluetooth, one USB 2.0 port, headphone and microphone jacks, expansion bus, SD card.  

Its starting price is set at $2,499 and it will become available starting with August.

According to the company’s executives, the development of the new notebook demanded more than two years of research and attempts. Also, apparently, the device was designed by the company’s customers, as hundreds of them were questioned by Panasonic’s employees about the features they considered mandatory for the new release.