Panasonic has announced a new Toughbook today [JP], a special version of its W8 notebook, which is also on the sale in the US. The new Japanese premium edition has no release date for overseas markets yet, however.

The biggest difference is the 80GB SSD (Intel X-25M) with 250MB/s reading and 70MB/s writing speed it comes with (the conventional has a shock-mounted 120GB HDD). This is the first time for a Japan-based company to use an SSD of this kind. Panasonic says the SSD in the new model is 15g lighter and also faster than the HDD used in the previous one.

The W8 premium edition goes on sale in Japan on March 27 and costs $3,400. Panasonic Japan will offer three different lid covers suitable for the Toughbook (in pink, silver and black).