Which toughbook has room to grow?

I have a CF27 Mk4 and i like it. I haven't seen very many threads on here about mods that can be done for the 27. I have seen the 28 and 29, but not as much on the other models. Is this because these models are cheap enough to really encourage modding or that they are able to easily handle modding?

I ask this because I am thinking about buying a second machine to work on. I am thinking of trying for a 34 maybe. I would like something with USB 2.0 maybe so that I could possible install a flash based drive for the OS and applications or other things like the gps, internal wifi and other mods.

What are the peculiarities of the different models and just how far can you go with these?

 

If we could figure out why ONLY the aztech modem card works in the CF27's miniPCI slot, we'd be doing the same things to the 27. Or if more 27s came with an internal PCMCIA slot (VERY few had this option), we'd be doing things with that.

 

I have a US Robotics Max G in one of the two 'credit card slots' on the right. It sticks about an inch past the body of the machine. I would like to do something sleek here. I can also swap my 128 Ram to 256 and that's about it.
I CAN so the stuff with the GPS and whatnot. I have a 30gb HD and can't go too much beyond that. No options on the processor as far as i understand.

If mine has an internal PCMCIA, would I be able to run a SSD as a primary off of that?

 

I think the CF-28 is the easiest of all to mod and has the most internal room to spare. 27s are way too slow for me....

 

The forum members here have a broad range of models
The toughbook model that I had first and loved was a cf-25 133 processer
That was quite a few years ago and my expectations are a lot greater now as far as speed and options
You have to decide on your flavour of operating system first before choosing the model to start modding
You will note a lot of cf-27 users run linux
Xp is pretty slow on these models

The mk-2 800 and mk-3 1000 cf-28’s run fine on xp
But they lack usb-2 and usually don’t have built-in wi-fi

The cf-29 would be my first choice
The cf-29 uses the same caddy/optical drive arrangement as the 27 and 28
The cf-29 has wi-fi built-in and has usb-2
The used battery’s for these are not that hard to find and still have reasonable life
And lastly the screen brightness has improved with each newer model
The cf-28’s screen is brighter than the cf-27 and the cf-29 is notably brighter still

As far as the smaller models the cf-m34 is an affordable choice
I personally like the cf-18, Its screen is quite bright, but the cf-18 is quite expensive


Alex

 

I am going to have to agree with Tomcat on this one. All the info he gave is great.

The CF-28 is very mod friendly and pretty cheap now. There are just a few draw backs like no usb-2 and no many have wifi. You can add GPS and all sorts of other things to it and there are a lot of members that have done a really good job modding theres out.

Next is the CF-29 they are a little more pricey but they have usb-2 and almost all of them have built in wifi already. There is still alot of mods that you can do to one of these too. They seem to be getting cheaper and a lot more people are getting them. Now we are seeing all the mods coming out for them it is a very nice unit and is not dated too much. It will run XP and most programs without a problem and reasonably quick.

I will have to agree that the CF-18 is a great unit. It is small light weight and performs very well. The screen is nice and bright and easy to use as well as you can get these models in digitizer (handwriting recognition etc) and in regular touchscreen. These units are not very modding friendly and they are packed really tight and do not have much room for anything else other than what panasonic designed for them. There is one user that has managed to put aftermarket GPS on the CF-18 and more will probably come down the road. These units are still pretty pricey on ebay as there is not as many of them and most of them are low models without GPS and WWAN things like that.

Good luck with your choices i imagine you will be happy with any of them i know i am.

-James

 

Yup... Tomcat hit that one on the head.... Good Job! But I still think that the CF-28 is the easiest to mod.... And has more room for stuff... But only because it has the great space beneath the battery. But I would rather have the CF-29 over the CF-28 for all the reasons Tomcat stated.

 

CF-30 all the way baby

 

Well if your going CF-30 now i gotta say CF-19 then.

I am loving my new cf-19 so far. I might like it better than my cf-30

-James

 

*Robs hits James on the cheek with a stick*

 

What he says!