Refurbished Panasonic Toughbook for $500

that's a heck of a deal! I have a TB CF-52, and love it!

If it had serial port what a machine.

> If it had serial port what a machine.

Yes, mine does!

Our IT recently purchased one of those for a different office. I got a chance to take a look at it.

In my opinion (no dis-respect Andy), for what they were going to use it for (occasional use outdoors)...it was way over priced. There was no option for a built in CD/DVD drive, so an external USB drive had to be purchased as an accessory (another bulky thing to pack around). I don't even think the laptops of the 1990's were this heavy and bulky.

For very specific uses, it is probably a very good solution. However for most jobs, if it is raining, I'd rather have a sleek/thin laptop inside the cab of the truck.

I guess the limited market is why they cost $3000+ and the fact that you can set off a hand grenade near it and it will still keep working.

Refurb for $500...Use your gut instinct - too good to be true. I'd stay away from that one.

Is that really a good deal for something refurbished?
A friend used to work at AT&T and he had one of those.
He left it here for me use while I was working on getting a new internet connection going.
I don't know if his had the active matrix touch screen though.

Ironically the guy that came to hookup up my new net connection was also from At&t and he had a small tablet with no keyboard. That thing was pretty slick.

I have two refurbished desktops, bought years ago, both still going strong, acting like true workhorses. Don't think I've ever bought a refurbished laptop though.

No offense taken.. I will say that that unit is usually a specialty, set up for police or something along those lines. It's not an all purpose kind of computer. My TB is more typical of a laptop, just a bit more rugged.