Buy Y5 in January or wait???

So I saw that Panasonic is finally coming out with the US cf-y5 version in January. Of course, they are about a chipset generation behind and it will only have a duo core processor in it. Do you think they will release a "Y-6" when the Santa Rosa processors come out, basically upgrading to a duo 2 core or duo 2 core LV?

And even if they do plan on upgrading I am assuming it won't be available till Decemberish, given that the Santa Rosa line is supposed to come out in March or April.

What do think? Buy in January or wait, maybe almost a year for something that may or may not come out.

 

Its pretty obvious Panasonic USA always has a long lag. That pattern is not likely to change. If you want a US supported warranty on the 5 series buy through dynamism.com. If you prefer the lowest possible price, but from conics.net.

 

What about the Let's note line? Maybe the wait for the upgraded let's note will be out sooner? When did the current Let's note y5 get released in relation to when the duo core came out?

 

By then The NEW will be the quad cpu's and then the core2 duo will seem like todays core uno. To wait or not to wait... What do i know i just bought a 600mhz CF-28

 

As the guy said there is ALWAYS something new ahead. If you wait for Y5 in Jnauary then in January there will be Y6 to wait for too!

Just buy what you belive to be the best value at the time. Forget the could shoulda woulda story.

 

I'm in a similiar situation, I am wondering whether to buy a UK spec Y5 or not.
According to the UK press releases the Y5 is released here in November.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of buying a UK spec Y5 compared with a Japanese import?

When I bought my Fujitsu P7010 from the USA, I can remember that it took nearly a month to buy, and that included wiring the money by international transfer.

 

I just thought I would browse the Panasonic line. I actually love the thick beefy look of the 29 model but with no dedicated graphics it's not even on the radar for me. Same for the lightweights. Hope panasonic gets a clue eventually instead of targeting specific types buyers. They could make good money. Not even one widescreen model?

 

There is something called Paypal these days - so that can be done faster now. Conics.net for example can sell you a Y5 via paypal. Probably the same of chaseandcompany.net.

Of course Paypal/Ebay are crooks as far as I'm concerned, but that is another story.

Regarding the UK vs Japan, obviously the local warranty would be a factor. The Japanese version would also have a English/Japan keybaord, whereas the UK version will have an English keyboard. But all the importers offer the option of an English keybaord for a few bucks more.

Price will also be usurious locally, although if you import the laptop by mail you will get a huge VAT bill as well.

 

Paypal is one of the companies that I had to put into my mail filtering black-list

I don't know what Panasonic's UK prices are like, but in the end on my Fujitsu laptop I only saved 128.00 GBP + a spare battery. The important thing, to me on that purchase, was I got the spec that wasn't available in the UK, and I was very keen to get the Aethos wifi chipset.

Given the huge battery recalls recently with other laptop makes, trying to factor whether a local warranty is more valuable than the possible savings is not easy.

 

Do they not upgrade anything for power reasons? Its seems to me they should have at least gone to a wide screen by now on the y5. however, is power is an issue, I see why they have not gone to a dedicated graphics card.

 

The only thing that concerns me in the Panasonic range including the Y5 is that they use 1.8" 4200rpm harddrives? I'm thinking it might be a little slow... I'm also interested in getting one as long its not a lot slower than my current laptop.

 

No - wrong. They use standard 2.5" ;laptop drives.

If you are handy with a screwdriver you can open the laptop this (involves opening the whole case by unscrewing the keybaord, not just a hatch) and install your own normal 2.5" 5400 or 7200 rpm drive of any capacity.

You can go to the LeoG ultraportable messageboards/forums for more info, pics and instructions.

 

Widescreen? Why? They are not aiming for the market of consumers who want to watch videos or play games.

If you have tracked the history of this brand, you can s ee that what they do is keep it simple and spend the money on keeping the weight down, to offer a very portable and very durable laptop for business users with basic needs.

I can see them doing it later on when it is way standardised, even more so than now - but they will not waste their time on leading with that sort of feature.

The core buyer of this laptop will be buy it - or not - because of features - not because of widescreen.

 

Thanks Skagan. I thought it used 1.8" because I can't believe its weight... AMAZING!

I'm fine with changing components. Most of my notebooks/desktops I use always get upgraded

Thanks for the pointer.

 

skagen,

For me having a widescreen is an advantage for business. I look at a lot of graphs and long spread sheets...I understand why they have not changed the basic design, I would just think they woul offer the option. I mean if you are forking over almost 3 grand, what's another couple hundred bucks for a widescreen, just my 2 cents

 

I dont think there is any doubt they will go wide screen, but it just seems very clear that their MO is to develop a series of platform and then ride it for a long time with upgrades to the componanents.

Makes sense if you think about the cost of engineering the chassis to get to such a low weight and still have the structural rigidity. To do they they have probably planned for many years in advance a specific set of upgrade paths -and invested in it and have to milk that. Remember that these are not exactly volume selling machines, even if you gave them widescreen, they would never be volume sellers.

So seem more likely that they will simply release a whole range (R, T, W, Y series) all at once with many different major structural changes, not just widescreen

 

Well R6 is out now and its not wide screen, so I guess not much hope for W6 and Y6 whenever they come out.

That said on the Y5 for example, you have 1400 x 1050 resolution, which does give you more resolution than the standard laptop "widescreen" of 1280 x 800.

 

Yeah, while I can see why you would like to have a widescreen business notebook, especially at a 14" notebook because the height difference between regular and widescreen notebooks is really noticable, you have to rethink that this notebook is so tiny, so light and so efficiently made, that even changing the chasis by that amount would probably require moving all the components around and using new hardware etc, which really can't be worth it.

 

The only thing that concerns me about the y5 is it doesnt have pc express.

If it did you could plug it into the upcoming asus external gpu.

If it did have that it would be pretty much the ultimate. Oh maybe widescreen too.

 

Express cards can be used in a PC slot I think if you get an adapter obviously. But the PC Express card is smaller so that should be doable.

But what would you need an external GPU for. You:ll just eat up thebattery life anyway and not for much benefit.

 

I dont think there is such a thing as an adapter from pcmia to pc express.

If there was it would be going quite slow.

The external gpu wouldnt use any battery its plugged into ac power.

It would be something you would leave with an external monitor so you could play games.

 

"Gaming"? With an external GPU? Lets face it - That is not only an obscure usage, but definitely non-business funcitonality. The Toughbook R T W Y series are definitley not targeted towards gamers in any way. So I wouldnt hold my breath for that one. Or would it be on Panny's list of priorities.

I would think they will do a whole slew of changes at one time and make a chassis to meet that, which IMO will be maybe end of year or 2008 when the Core2Duo is released in an all-new new platfrom (of integrated GPU and Wireless radio) as opposed to what they have done right now which is to slap it on to the existing platform that was used by first Pentoum M, then Core Solo and Duo.