Panasonic announces Toughbook 56 with “world first” 10GbE networking

At a press conference in Stockholm today, the world’s leading manufacturer of rugged laptops unveiled the Panasonic Toughbook 56. While it offers several useful upgrades over the Toughbook 55, Dirk Weigelt, Senior Product and Solutions Manager at Panasonic Toughbook, claimed on-stage that “we have made an ergonomic leap in rugged computing”.

“[We] redesigned the handle itself in terms of texture, so it’s easier to grab in the hand, even when wearing gloves, or if you have sweaty hands,” said Weigelt. “But on the other hand, we increased the diameter, so it’s more convenient if you carry it for a longer time.” It has also changed the positioning of the clip.

And while the screen of the Toughbook 55 supported touch via gloves, fingers and pen, if you selected the right mode, the Panasonic Toughbook 56 can automatically choose the most appropriate setting.

World first: 10GbE LAN

Another big boost is to connectivity: with the optional 10Gb LAN module, users can simultaneously connect to 1Gb, 2.5Gb and 10Gb sources for greater speeds or simple reliability.

“Now you can have three different LAN data streams at the same time with three different MAC addresses which are not interfering with each other,” said Weigelt. “Why does it matter? Sometimes you have to connect to the customer data at the same time you connect, for example, to your corporate data.”

Not to mention more sensitive environments. “Think about defence industry, where you have readers from various sources coming into the device, including the technical data, including the admin data, at the same time with different data streams. And here we support the people outside, on the mission, to get all the data not mixed up.”

The Toughbook 56 also comes with Wi-Fi 7 compared to Wi-Fi 6E for the Toughbook 55.

Screen and battery improvements to Panasonic Toughbook 56

The screen is now a more modern 16:10 aspect ratio. Panasonic has also boosted the base model’s resolution from 1,366 x 768 to a far sharper 1,920 x 1,200. As before, the screen can go right down to 1cd/m2 so that defence workers’ positions won’t be accidentally revealed by a bright screen.

Using Mobile Mark 30, with the screen set to 250cd/m2, Panasonic claims that it has boosted battery life from 10 hours for a single battery to 12 hours. Add a second battery, and that doubles to a full, 24-hour day. This is despite Panasonic sticking to the same 68Wh battery unit as in the Toughbook 55.

Part of this improvement stems from a redesign of the motherboard, Panasonic claims, but the bulk will be due to the Core Ultra 2 series processors versus a 13th generation Intel Core i5 chip. All support Intel’s vPro technology.

Price and availability of Panasonic Toughbook 56

We don’t yet have pricing for the Toughbook 56, but Panasonic admitted that it will be higher than the Toughbook 55 due to the price rises of RAM and storage.

The Toughbook 56 will go on sale from the end of April 2026 worldwide.

Panasonic Toughbook 56 vs Toughbook 55

Official photos of Panasonic Toughbook 56