36 AMERICANWAY
NOVEMBER 15 2008
T E C H N O L O G Y
a series of drop tests, the kind that would
make any normal personwince. They drop
one from a height of three feet onto ply-
wood over concrete — on every edge, cor-
ner, and face. They drop another, this time
while it’s running. And then, they drop a
laptop from
higher
than three feetwhile it’s
running. Next, they drop one directly onto
theconcrete.And, just to seewhathappens,
they also drop a Toughbook from a height
of up to 18 feet. Panasonic has even sent
agentswith special force-measuring equip-
ment onto the Tokyo subway—where the
cars are so crowded, attendants are actually
paid to shove people inside— to see what
kind of pressure a laptop held against the
chest might have to withstand. (Answer:
225pounds, plus simultaneous jostling.)
No wonder some 1,000 Toughbooks are
damaged each year during testing. Drop
them from 18 feet just to see where the
g-forces exert themselves?And they say en-
gineers are cautious types.
Come to think of it, it’s actually caution
that motivates all this abuse. If the engi-
neers didn’t drop, spray, fold, heat, freeze,
MEANWhIlE, oN thE
opposite side of the
world, otherPanasonic engineers are sleep-
ing after a long day of more grueling tests.
In all, every fully ruggedToughbookmodel
has topass 11 tests tobe certifiedMil-Spec,
or built to military specifications. Walls
recites them: vibration, drop shock, heat,
cold, thermal shock, humidity, water resis-
tance, dust resistance, altitude, keyboard
testing, andhinge testing.
In Kobe, Japan, they water-test a
Toughbook, watching as a curved wand—
reminiscentofa lawn sprinkler—orbits the
open computer, gushing. It’s the equivalent
of leaving the poor thing out in a driving
rainstorm— an important test to do since
utility customers actually often have to use
theirToughbooksduringadownpour.
The engineers blowa computerwithfine
dust (silica flour, to be exact) tomake sure
it won’t get damaged in a sandstorm. “
[
We
test with
]
the sort of particle size that flies
around in a certain desert where a lot of
these computers are deployed right now,”
Walls says cryptically.
They also submit a group of laptops to
that laptop, didn’t I?” But Walls simply
tippeduphis semiruggedToughbook 74 to
dump the liquid, and voilà! No harm, no
foul. That was followed by sighs of relief
from the woman and a grin from theman
who sellsToughbook laptops for a living.
There are all sorts of technical reasons
why the engineers are able to test Tough-
books without causing major damage like
the kind my own laptops have sustained.
Hard drives with protected connectors
and multilayered shock absorption; a
magnesium-alloy case fitted with thermal
pipes to be a high-performance heat sink;
a thermostat that triggers a tiny heater,
making it possible to start the hard drive
at below-zero temps; individually sealed
components; and covered ports are among
them. With each generation, Panasonic
asks its customers howToughbookmodels
could be improved. And the call-support
center is just down the hall from engineer-
ing so thatwhen customers callwith issues,
engineers can help solve them— and also
take preventativemeasureswithnext year’s
new laptops.
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