Used TOUGHBOOK 52 MK2 Touchscreen

solid old toughbook, solid company

Posted by Pete Martin on 6th Mar 2021

I find this to be a very good laptop, nicely priced, and only rate it "4 stars" to avoid grade inflation (it's not a dream come true or something like that). It arrived in good time and very well packed. I appreciated that it came with a new "replacement AC adapter"---big and heavy, but one doesn't mind when one is in this market. The same can be said generically of the Toughbook CF-52 itself: thick and heavy, but that's OK! The screen hinges are likely to last much longer than those of a standard laptop. There are an abundance of connections, including four USB, one RJ-11 phone, PCMCIA and Express card slots, and one DB-9 serial (for some purposes superior to USB-serial adapter). The touch screen is a bit difficult to "calibrate" (match stylus position to cursor position), but it is a usable and handy feature. I happen to like the 4:3 aspect ratio of the 1024 x 768 display, but one should be aware of that difference with respect to the CF-52 with wider non-touchscreen display. The hard drive on my unit was 238 GB, very light-weight, and needed to be re-seated. The XP Professional OS (2002, service pack 3) has its limitations in the present world (e.g. not compatible with my Canon TS9520 printer). This CF-52 may be about 14 years old, but it is still a durable utilitarian laptop.