I just realized that my CF-54 is over 4 years old and still going strong. It's been my companion on various travels across the globe. From far east jungle to east coast Starbucks and from northern minus degrees to middle east heat. Serving just fine.
My specific unit is with non glossy FullHD touch screen, 16 GB RAM and 256/512GB removable drive and internal 1 TB M2 SSD. It has two battery, giving it reasonable good battery lifetime while running latest Debian 9.1. All devices work just out of standard installation (wifi, touch, LTE, audio, brightness and bluetooth, hibernate). So hardware wise it's very capable machine, giving some serious peace of mind when traveling.
Only downside for really intensive work is SSD interface type, which is SATA. I realized this when compiling huge projects on embedded Linux world and SATA interface is slow, when compared to nvme ssd.
I was offered to switch to Dell Precision 5520 or XPS 13 and I tried them extensively out during last spring.
And even they had superior specs over my four year old CF-54, it was still huge disappointment. 5520 had 32 GB RAM, 1 TB nvme SSD and bigger display, but still - I just cannot live machine that fragile with my everyday job.
For me laptop is mobility and traveling. I just cannot stuff that piece of plastic on overhead lockers on that third jump on fully booked plane, carry it with me on field operations while testing my code or anything else than just pure office work.
So if you're after any serious Linux Laptop and you are able to live with SATA SSD, Panasonic CF-54 Toughbook is your choice. I've run Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora on it and it just works without a glitch.
I just smile to Panasonics efforts to sell this beauty with Windows 10 and at the same time I am so glad if any of our competitor takes that path :)
