A quick look at the five-pound CF-19 reveals that it is made for tough environments. The industrial-design magnesium-alloy top panel with black hard rubber bumpers looks like it yearns for a dusty, dirty factory or warehouse floor. All of the ports on the back and sides are protected behind hinged plastic doors. An ingeniously placed clasp on the front panel can clamp down the screen in either Tablet or notebook mode and can be hidden out of the way when not needed. On the spine of the notebook is a handy nylon carrying strap, but it doesn’t seem nearly as sturdy as the CF-19 itself and tends to block access to the connection ports on the back panel.

Inside, the hard drive and display are both shock-mounted. Panasonic claims that the system has passed many of the MIL-STD-810F durability tests, including the drop, vibration, water resistance (spray), dust, and humidity tests.

The 10.4-inch screen on the CF-19 may be small by current notebook standards but is typical for rugged Tablets. An extremely fine pixel density enables the screen to support XGA native resolution, or 123 pixels per inch-more than 50 percent greater than a typical screen. As a result, text appeared a bit small, but photos looked extremely sharp. This display held up extremely well in sunlight; we were able to view it outdoors with only a slight loss in contrast. The screen looked fine when rotated, but there was a very noticeable color and brightness shift when tilted up or down. Worse, when we switched to portrait mode to use the CF-19 as a Tablet, the disparity in brightness along the vertical axis became horizontal, making the screen very difficult to read.

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