Toughbook makes Things Easy!

Gunjan Sachdev
General Manager & National Business Head (Toughbook Division)
Panasonic India Pvt. Ltd 

Responsible for overall leadership, growth and strategy of the Panasonic Toughbook brand in India, Gunjan Sachdev, General Manager & National Business Head (Toughbook Division), Panasonic India Pvt. Ltd, believes that the company’s Toughbook mobile computers will play a key part of India’s focus on economic growth and development as well as extending service delivery outside of the major cities. The brand has been enabling professionals to achieve far more in the field with its enhanced connectivity, performance, portability and durability. 

Panasonic’s new Ultrabook boasts of being the slimmest, lightest and sturdiest in its class and features a multi-touch interface running Windows 8. In a tête-à-tête with VARINDIA, Gunjan shares her views about the Panasonic Toughbook, Ultrabook and more. Edited excerpts:

How relevant is the Ultrabook in today’s enterprises?

Today, the trend in portable computing in enterprises is to carry two devices – a laptop as well as a tablet at the same time. It is mainly because a tablet is lighter than a laptop, has a touchscreen, and is a conducive alternative to the laptop for performing routine tasks like checking e-mails, surfing, networking and collaborating while on the move.

What if both the devices were rolled into a single form-factor?

With Ultrabook, executives can save space, reduce device-weight, and enjoy ease of portability. Also with an exemplary battery life of eight hours, one can rest assured that a trip to the charging point during a normal workday is not necessary.

The new Ultrabook comes from a family of Panasonic Toughbooks which account for 60 per cent of the Toughbook market share. What features are common?

True to their name, Panasonic’s Toughbook laptops are known to be rugged. They can resist falls, vibration and pressure. They are also known for their long-lasting battery life. Panasonic Ultrabook is a direct descendant of the Toughbook range of laptops and carries all these new features. Made from magnesium alloy, the Panasonic Ultrabook can resist drops of up to 76 cms and bear up to 100 kg force vibration. The Ultrabook also comes with an excellent battery life of eight hours.

The weight of laptops is a major concern for business professionals on the move. How does the Ultrabook address this?

A professional team of engineers from Japan has crafted the Panasonic Ultrabook. Faced with the challenge of manufacturing the lightest Ultrabook, it includes a rugged chassis and provides two batteries. The engineers have managed to keep its weight down to 1.5 kgs.

Apart from the lightweight chassis, the Ultrabook is also the slimmest in its segment.

If you are concerned about the ports, throw them out of the window. The Panasonic Ultrabook has a plethora of connectivity ports like HDMI, USB, LAN, VGA, microphone jack and a headphone jack.

A distinctive feature of the Ultrabook is that it is a tablet and a laptop rolled into one. What are its other distinctive features?

As mentioned earlier, the Panasonic Ultrabook is the lightest and thinnest in its category, comes enclosed in a rugged chassis and has a long battery life of eight hours which is hot-swappable. Apart from that, the Ultrabook has an optional in-built SIM card slot for 2G/3G connectivity. Hence, the Internet can be accessed without an external data card (InternetDongle). It also comes pre-installed with Windows 8 with multi-touchscreen capability. Its 128GB SSD ensures that the system boots in the blink of an eye. The lack of an optical drive is by two USB ports through which external memory drives can be attached.

Moumita Deb Choudhury