Panasonic upgrades the Toughbook 55 with Tiger Lake CPUs, more RAM and Wi-Fi 6

Panasonic touts the Toughbook 55 as the ideal laptop for public service workers, professionals in similar areas or even those who appreciate the abilities to remove and replace their memory, storage or even their keyboard, which are options dwindling among devices from other OEMs.

The 55 even has a hot-swappable battery, in case an estimated 38 hours per charge on one is not enough. It also comes in a chassis robust enough for IP53 and MIL-STD-810H ratings. It also has new "Mark 2" variants, updated with the i5-1145G7 or i7-1185G7 processors for 2021.

The updated Toughbook 55 also comes with base models of 16GB in terms of RAM, which is double that found in the original 2019 SKUs. Panasonic also claims that this memory (with a new maximum of 64GB) is twice as fast in these refreshed models.

It follows that the Toughbook 55 mk 2 also now has Wi-Fi 6 and a USB type-C port rated for Thunderbolt 4 speeds, as well as Bluetooth 5.1. It also comes with a 10Gb/s type-A port for the first time, as well as Opal-capable NVMe SSDs of 512GB to 2TB in size.

Nevertheless, the mk 2 still has its 3 bays for the modular xPAK system (one of which adds a dGPU to the machine, while the latest is a barcode-reading variant) and is also still backwards-compatible with the Toughbook 54's system of vehicle and desktop docks.

Therefore, a user is free to fine-tune the PC's configurations according to their requirements. Potential customers can choose their Toughbook 55 mk2 layout on panasonic.com/us.