Rugged laptops typically involve a few compromises: If you get a screen large enough to work comfortably for hours or watch movies, you’ll have to lug seven or eight pounds around. Smaller models are lighter, but their keyboards are cramped. The 10-inch Panasonic Toughbook 19, a small rugged tablet that costs $4,344, falls in the latter category. But while this machine is inherently imperfect from an ergonomic standpoint, it still bears an impressive nearly 8 hours of battery life and a bright touchscreen display.
Design
The design of the Toughbook 19 hasn’t changed since we last reviewed it more than a year ago. The silver, magnesium alloy chassis has Panasonic’s logo stamped prominently on the lid and black bumpers on the sides. (Inside, the keyboard, deck, and touch buttons are black, too; the palm rest and bezel are silver.) Because the screen is just 10.4 inches, the notebook weighs a portable 5 pounds (13- and 14-inch ruggeds run in the 7- to 8-pound range), and has a carrying handle, too. Even without the handle, the Toughbook 19 is relatively small, 10.7 x 8.5 x 1.9-inch frame made it easy to carry.
On the sides, all of the ports are sealed, making this rugged notebook dust-resistant, in addition to water- and vibration-resistant. The ports include: two USB 2.0, two external antenna connectors, serial and FireWire, external video, a port replicator, Ethernet and modem jacks, and headphone and mic. The Toughbook 19 also has a PC Card Type II slot, an ExpressCard/54 slot, and an SD Card reader. Our unit had no webcam, although a 2-MP camera with autofocus and dual LED flash is optional ($300). Annoyingly, because of the gasketing, the ports don’t fit on the sides; some key openings, including a USB port, are in the back.
Keyboard and Touchpad
In terms of the layout, the Toughbook 19’s spill-resistant keyboard looks like it was ripped from a first-generation netbook: it’s cramped, and some keys are shrunken or—worse—misplaced. We never got comfortable writing e-mails or anything else longer than a few characters; we typed gingerly so as not to hit the wrong key by mistake. Searching for the undersized tab and question mark keys slowed down typing, and the arrow keys are arranged in a frustrating L shape, with the right and left arrow keys next to each other, and the up and down keys stacked adjacent to them. For $250 you can add backlighting to the keyboard.
As wide as the palm rest is, the touchpad is still small, at 2.3 x 1.5 inches; that’s barely larger than those on netbooks, such as the Samsung N110. Although the touchpad is large enough for dragging the cursor across the screen, we though it had too much friction. To boot, the rubbery touch buttons are too small and stiff.
Display and Sound
The screen on the Toughbook 19 has a brightness level of 500 nits when you use it like a laptop, which 
doubles to 1,000 nits when in tablet mode. The wide range is meant to accommodate many lighting conditions, from weak natural light to lots of sun glare.
Indeed, the Toughbook 19’s display was stunning. The 10.4-inch screen is so vibrant that even our co-workers stopped by our work area to comment on its brightness. Its matte finish makes for a versatile range of viewing angles, which is precisely what mobile professionals working in the field require. The default resolution (1024 x 768) might be too fine for some viewers; we, at least, didn’t enjoy staring at it for extended periods of time.
The speaker (there’s only one), built into the lower right corner of the bezel, produces surprisingly loud audio, but it’s tinny.
