New-to-me Toughbook

[craig]

$400? I saw several for about $3000, but nothing anywhere near $400. Did you maybe drop a zero?

I have an EO Tuftab coming in the mail right now. For expedition travel I think it will work ideal. $1700 for a 7" semi-ruggedized tablet. I plan to use it for:

- Photo storage / reviewing
- Navigation (Overland Navigator (my software)), w/ a bluetooth, SDIO, or USB GPS
- OBDII reader or Rovacomm
- Journal entries - (DavidRM Software's "The Journal") It has a built in stand. I'll plug a USB keyboard in when writing at the end of each day.

It has an optional docking station with a VESA compatible mount. The VESA mount should make it easy to integrate with a RAM mount. With the small size, it shouldn't dominate the dash or passenger space when mounted. We'll see.

 

[BogusBlake]

$400? I saw several for about $3000, but nothing anywhere near $400. Did you maybe drop a zero?

Nope, but it's a CF-28, not a CF-19.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0009KKZCO/ref=dp_olp_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1198546166&sr=8-2

 

[craig]

Ah, thanks. A PIII w/ 256mb of RAM makes more sense for that price. bummer though.

 

[jerdog53]

I bought my Tough book off of eBay! Paid $500 for a year old CF-51 Tough book and so far am really happy with it. I received this tough book and fired it up and it worked just fine well come to find out it didn’t have word or excel on it which we thought it did well this get me to thinking and I go pull out my old lap top, the burned up one, you know we Jeepers don’t toss anything we may need later so again being a Jeeper I took it all apart I mean I can’t hurt it right because its already burnt up. Pull the hard drive out of it the ram and the DVD-rw drive, clear off my work space(kitchen table) and grab the tough book pop the hard drive cartridge out of it then pop the cover off of that and then lookie here! The burnt up lap top has the same hard drive that the tough book does! Score! Added bonus its 60g and the stock tough book was only 40g so I did the old swap a roo reinsert the hard drive cartridge and bam! Tough book system comes back up and now I have word and excel just like it was there all along! There was also some photos from back in the day I had forgotten were on that old lap top I was plum tickled to death! so to speak. Next I thought well if the hard drive is compatible what about the ram, pulled the panel to access the ram and sure enough same size and speed so I plug in the additional card and wahoo! 1 g worth of ram I had to set on my hands to keep from clapping!

 

[RobinP]

currently on ebay there are some good deals on toughbooks...
hard-drive space is the issue I keep coming up against..
especially with the size of the maps for oziexplorer and then some music and photos and bonk you are full

Don't worry about hard drive space or RAM. Both are cheap to upgrade - the hard drive caddy can be taken apart and a standard 2.5" drive can be replaced with a larger one.

I did a pretty detailed write-up on buying used toughbooks on OverlandResource.com.

 

[hattrik21]

My father works for Panasonic, specifcally the laptop division so he gets me a new CF-5x series every year when they roll out the new models. I'm also trying to get him to give me his older cf-2x series for my truck so I can mount it for trail riding.

They are solid machines and I've used and abused the ones I've gotten without one break down.

If anyone ever needs parts for one, I can see what my father can get so just PM me.