Panasonic Computer Solutions Panasonic Toughbook CF-18, a rugged notebook, gets very good marks, especially for battery life, a bright screen, and the ability to run most tablet or notebook applications adequately. The four-pound Toughbook CF-18 will operate in environments that would shut down most other laptops. A wireless 802.11a/b radio is built in, and two Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0 ports are protected behind sturdy rubber stoppers to halt water or moisture seepage. The CF-18 is optimized for long battery life with an Intel Pentium M Ultra Low Voltage processor running at 1.2GHz. During testing, users ran a movie off the hard drive and disabled all power saving features, but the Toughbook CF-18 still ran for four hours and 27 minutes, which was one of the best battery performances seen by testers. Therefore, the listed operating time of four-six hours for normal use is probably a conservative estimate. The new CF-18 is rated at 500 nits for a screen that is very bright and sharp. In a car or outdoors, testers could still read the screen under just about any lighting conditions, even with sunlight coming through an open top. In GCN Alterion benchmarks, the Toughbook CF-18's score was 4,113, which is below average for many business notebooks. Its performance is probably due to the low-voltage processor. The Toughbook CF-18 provides a rugged, very portable system for those who want to pay more for reliability when using a laptop in rugged environments.