Panasonic Toughpad A1 Android tablet for when the going gets tough

The Gadget Show  Tuesday 08 November 2011

Panasonic may not be the first people you think of when it comes to making tablets, but with the Panasonic Toughpad A1 the company is offering up a 10.1-inch Android tablet built to last no matter what you do for work or play.

Panasonic first made rumblings that it would be joining the tablet gold rush back in June of this year but it’s taken until now for details to fully come together and the company is claiming that the Panasonic Toughpad A1 will hit the streets in spring of 2012 and have a price of around £1K, so not the cheapest Android tablet around.

Check out our review of the super deluxe Panasonic Lumix TZ20

Then again, you wouldn’t expect the Panasonic Toughpad A1 to be cheap, not with it being designed to survive in extreme outdoor conditions, so perfect for those who like to check out videos of themselves on Vimeo when out rock climbing, as well as for the core purposes for which it has been designed, the construction and aviation industries, or even the military who will no doubt be the biggest supporters of this tablet.

The screen has been specially designed to be used in all light conditions, particularly outdoors, while the whole device can withstand extremes of temperature and moisture.

Alongside the 10.1-inch screen and tough outer-shell, the Panasonic Toughpad A1 is powered by a 1.2GHz Marvell dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage, so you’ll find it packs a punch when comes to running the Android 3.2 Honeycomb operating system.

The Panasonic Toughpad A1 is set to be joined by the Panasonic Touchpad B1 tablet, but the company is keeping this smaller version with its 7-inch screen pretty much under wrapped until the new year.

So, if you’re on the lookout for something other than an iPad 2 or Samsung Galaxy Tab, the Panasonic Toughpad A1 could well be the way to go. What do you think, is Panasonic bringing the right level of differentiation to the market or is it too little too late? Let us know in the Comments below.

Jon goes hands-on with the rugged Panasonic FT3