Crazy Consumer Electronics World: Panasonic debuts Broadwell-powered toughened convertible

Panasonic has rolled out another lightweight and durable 2-in-1 Toughbook convertible that promises to put up with all the bumps and scrapes thrown at it.

The Toughbook CF-MX4 is powered by a super-fast Intel 5th Generation Core i5 Broadwell vPro processor and offers full Windows 8.1 Pro support that will eventually become Windows 10 upon its eventual release.

Under the hood is an Intel Core i5-6300U vPro chip is clocked at 2.3GHz with a Turbo Boost up to 2.9GHz and business users can choose between 4GB or 8GB of RAM and a SSD capacity of 128GB or 256GB.

The 12.5-inch IPS full-HD capacitive touchscreen display fits inside a case that is just 21mm thick and weighs a slender 1.14kg. It is able to offer a lighter weight machine because the upper chassis of the keyboard is made from a new UHD alloy constructed of carbon and magnesium thus creating a lightweight material that is also incredibly tough.

As an added bonus there is a built-in stylus that makes it easy to create handwritten notes or draw on the slate and the flip-over design lends itself to laptop, tablet and presentation modes.

Hot-swap battery

Panasonic promises a battery that can last up to 13 hours and even beyond that users can swap out the cell for another hot swap battery to give yet more juice. There's the usual plethora of ports that includes two USB 3.0, HDMI, VGA, an SD card reader, optional smart card reader, and it supports 4G LTE as an option alongside Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

The Toughbook CF-MX4 will be available to buy from the end of April 2015 with prices starting at £1,504 (ex-VAT) (around $2,264, or AU$2,910) and a three-year warranty included as standard.