Panasonic's refresh rate

has anyone been following panasonic's releases of toughbook for a while.

particular the 'letsnote' type ones, W7 T7 etc..

im waiting at least until u110 and x300 are refreshed for montevina, and to see what Apple announces for Atom and Montevina, before making any decisions

but the silence from panasonic on anything but their flagshipt product is deafening. is it safe ot assume they dont really care and it might be 6 months before htey throw a new chip in the T7?

 

I was trying to convince my mother to ditch her nice Sony and get a T7. Remember that the letsnotes are not touchscreen AND they have funny keyboards because their only mostly sold in Europe. IMHO I don't think that the letsnotes are real toughbooks because they don't have the touchscreen (at least the T7) (because the Y/W7 doesn't have TS anyways) + they call em "letsnote" not TOUGHBOOK!

 

I think Panasonic just don't bother much with large internet announcements. The Let's-Note-machines have been quietly updated over the months, at least in Japan - some online dealers like Dynamism offer such devices - and I never read an announcement about those upgrades. So the fact that they are not talking doesn't mean there is nothing in the works for the near future.

Who knows - the Y7 has been out for over a year, so maybe they will transition to the next generation (Y8, or is eight one of those 'evil numbers' in Japan?). I wonder for how long Panasonic will stick to 4:3-screens, it seems they are the only one left now that even Lenovo appears to be going widescreen-only.

 

The CF-52 is a 15.4" widescreen...

 

Thing is, widescreen doesn't really add any screen real-estate. It's only to watch movies AFAIK. And increasing resolution simply makes it harder to operate touchscreens as icons and buttons are so small and cramped. Imagine trying to use a touchscreen in a car like the Lenovo T60/61... 1600x1400 or something like that? The icons are the size of a thumbtack! And what about hitting the X to close the window.

 

Indeed, I'm certainly not looking forward to an all-widescreen world, but it seems to be the way we are heading. Panasonic do not manufacture the Toughbook screens themselves (or do they?), so it is not entirely their decision, I would think.

On large screens I do not care whether wide or not, but on smaller portable notebooks I prefer the conventional ratio. Getac is offering their CF-18/19-clone in a 12"-widescreen-variant, that is one funny looking machine. (But maybe it works well, I've never handled one.)

 

Panasonic manufactures the touch element that goes over the screen itself... most of the screens are standard screens manufactured by Samsung and others