Cf W8

Hi there
Does anyone here own a W8? I'd be interested in how you find it
Thanks

 

I don't have a W8 but for whatever it may be worth, here is my experience.

I use a W7, after having used first a W2 then a W5 over the past several years. Now I would not use anything else. I guess I should clarify my application - business travel. I use Office and a few other business apps, watch movies from time to time, but no real gaming.

Hope this is useful to you and wish you well in finding the system you want.

Dave

p.s. I had used several different brands of laptops before my first TB: IBM, Sony, Toshiba, HP.

 

Thanks for your reply Dave. It's proved quite difficult to find information on these.

As far as I can see the W8 is the same as W7 except for an updated processor. To be honest I never really set out with something like a toughbook in mind - just a compact laptop, and so far I have considered everything from netbooks to Leveno x200 to a variety of Samsung machines.

The Panasonic costs perhaps more than I planned to spend, but the quirky design (front loading DVD), light weight and long battery life are attractive, as well as the fact that it is built from scratrch in Japan. Having said that I'm not really planning to take it round the world, but a more robust build quality is nevertheless attractive as i expect my 3 kids will want t get hold of it. I don't plan to play games on it anyway, apart from chess software (my daughter plays chess tournaments) and that doesn't need much in the way of graphics performance.

Tell me, how is the speaker sounding? A bit quiet i expect? What battery life do you get on your machine? I noticed some of the reviews do criticize the standard ratio relatively low resolution screen - how do you find it?

Anyway I am tempted, even though in the UK I think I may have to import direct from Japan, buying the silver model with an international keyboard. I saw a beautiful red and black one on one website, but the price was really too high.

Anyway, thanks again for your reply

 

Check to make sure these are stock colors! Toughbook modifications r a growing business. Painting them is getting more common but not a good idea IMO... They have specil finishes on the from the factory... To paint it correctly you must remove the finish... not a good idea either. just make sure the finish is from the factory!

Speaker sound should be okay but not great... You should try to find one somewhere where you can try it out first...

 

As mentioned above, don’t buy one of these for the speakers; they are pretty basic. That said I’ve watched quite a few movies on mine, and found the speakers adequate for that.

I have not formally tested the battery but it seems to be about 4 hours, perhaps a little more.

The first TB I bought, a W2, I also purchased directly out of Japan. I have to say, though, that I did not care for the keyboard. The enter key is much smaller and farther to the right than I like, and the space bar was inconvenient for me, a left-hander, at least. FWIW, I actually bought from Panasonic parts a US keyboard and retrofitted it. That turned out to be less than ideal, as well. The keys did not map correctly, and even after I installed Microsoft’s key re-mapper, I had little troubles. Especially if I had to run in DOS mode, I would have to enter the ASCII codes for some characters, the back slash being the biggest nuisance. (Think of entering a complicated URL, and having to use the ASCII codes for every backslash! Ugh!) I eventually went back to the Japanese keyboard, but vowed never to buy a Japanese keyboard model again. But, again, that was just my experience.

After I had had mine for a while, my wife wanted a new laptop, but with a larger screen than a Wx offers. I got her a Y2 off eBay, and she raves over it. So, don’t be surprised if you get a lot of competition from your children. It is so light to carry and use, and the DVD so handy that it’s hard to look at another laptop after you have used one of these.

Good luck!

 

There is a local warehouse outlet store named ABT electronics here in Glenview (Rich Chicago suburb): http://www.abt.com/product/39550/Panasonic-CFW8EWDZZAM.html

 

Thanks for all your feedback. I also recently noticed some new UK stock of an old model the CF-Y5 on Ebay at reasonable cost. It's larger but still reasonably light I guess. Otherwise the W5/7/8 or Y7 will need to be imported from US or Japan.
The specs on Y5 are obviously ancient by current standards, but running XP, with a memory upgrade to 1.5GB I thought it might still be OK for internet, documents and chess. Does anyone still run one of these older machines?
Thanks

 

Ah, sorry Dave143, I just re-read your post and you commented that your wife is happy with a Y2, so obviously these units are still OK for everyday use. I guess the power may be equivalent to one of the current netbooks?
I think I might go with the UK available Y5, as it will be nice not to have to import and deal with customs charges etc.
Thanks again, Andrew

 

I used my 2 series up this January when I replaced it with a 8 series (an CF-F8)
Its was still a good model for business use
So I think your safe on a 5 series if cost is a concern

Alex

 

I agree; I think the Y5 is an excellent machine. I also have a Y7, and I think there is very little difference between the two.

 

Hi!
A friend of mine bought a CF-W8 in Japan and needs a US-layout keyboard. does anybody knows where you can take one? (need an original one)

 

You should be able to order it from the Panasonic Parts site.

However, it might not work as well as you'd like - if Panasonic has not changed how they support keyboards. I have a Japanese W2 and wanted to do the same thing - put in a US keyboard. I had no trouble ordering or installing it. However, the BIOS still thought it was still the Japanexe verison and did not map the keys corectly. As I remember it, the biggest problem I had was that the backslash was not recognized.

It is possible to overcome this with the Microsoft Windows key mapping software, but it was still far from perfect. For instance, the only way to enter a backslash under DOS was to enter the binary value, a real nuisance. I concluded eventually that the Japanese keyboard was less of a problem than the remapped US version and re-installed it.

Of course, this may have all changed, but the only way to find out, I guess, would be to take the chance and purchase a US keyboard. Good luck.

 

thanks, a lot.

 

Dear Alex, can you post some thoughts about your F8?
1)Do you find carrying handle useful, or is it just a waste of space?
2)What's the battery life in real business use (no DVD, just Word, Internet etc)?
3)Do you like the screen? Don't you feel sorry fr it being widescreen instead f SXGA+ Y8?
4)Fan noise under office use - is there any? Can the fan not turn on at all under no load?

Thnaks a lot!

 

Just to throw in an opinion on the W vs Y question. I have owned a W5 and a Y5.

To sum it up the real benefit of the W5 is the suberb portability and battery life. But that said, I bought my wife an Acer 1810TZ that if I'm to be honest almost matches the W series more or less on performance and weight, except that you cant dropkick it.

What was tough about the W series was the cramped and awkward keyboard layout, and I'm some one who has used a lot of ultraportables. This and the cramped screen was what prompted me to sell the W5 and get the Y5.

The Y series is a real step up. Still at just 3.5lbs you have an excellent screen. If you get the Y7 instead of Y5 then you have incredible screen resoluton dual core CPU, which helps with multitasking between applications and also within multithreaded applications such as WinRAR. The Y keyboard is roomier and just feels a hellova lot better. And all this in a package that is about the weight of some "netbooks".

Only negative on the Y for me was that the fan was noisier than I would have expected. Actually quite noisy compared to the Dell XPS M1330 with intel integrated CPU that I have at work. And the Dell has a lot more horsepower, so that fan noise in the Y is a bit surprising.

With the F series you get a bit more in the more modern CPU, but you lose some vertical pixels in the screen compared to the Y series.