"User preferences are different in Japan, which is why Panasonic still offers 12”-class laptops with optical drives, thick replaceable batteries and plenty of connectors."
I have to agree with the Japanese market on laptop preferences. I'd be okay with a roughly 12 inch screen laptop that has better cooling and an easily replaced battery that was a 1 to 1.5 inches thick in order to handle those additional capabilities. Some might balk at the price, but that's fairly reasonable for the Japanese economy with its relatively high cost of living.
I'm not a wimp :) so I can carry 1 Kilo of extreme high-quality/productivity/performance laptop.
The ODD is sooooo useful for quick reliable backups when information is sensitive and you don't want to keep it online or on the laptop (that can be hacked and info gets accessed before you realize) and you don't want to keep all in one place like a portable HDD which is easily stolen, copied, broken.
Often the "thin" laptop and the external ODD are heavier than this integrated solution so why not the f*ck integrate them ?!
Also the ODD can be made swap-able with an extra battery or a HDD/SSD bay.
It makes no sense to not integrate ODDs in laptops unless you're shooting for extreme lightness and thinness, but unfortunately now MOST laptops come without, while the price is higher despite lesser hardware.
Also I really appreciate the ruggedness and I would have thought this would become mainstream after 2015, but apparently laptops are less and less reliable now :(
Anyway , I love these. Laptops are tools . not fashion statements and making them fashionable should not affect our productivity and the reliability of the product.
They can have their laptop when they pry it from my cold, dead hands! ... No, actually, they can have it now. Passive-matrix 800x600 displays are poop.
Well originally, and I don't know if this is still true, they had a "feature" where you can run your finger around the touchpad in a circular motion to scroll up or down. Kind of like "infinite scrolling" if you want it because you can just keep swirling around.
To be honest it wasn't all that useful in my opinion, and not really any significant improvement over just sliding your finger up or down on a rectangular trackpad and then lifting and repositioning it to continue the scroll if you want to.
I owned a couple of the "Let's Note" series in the mid to late 2000's. Specifically the T2 (for my wife) and Y2 (for me). The Y2 was awesome in its time - 3.3 lbs weight, 14.1 inch display, magnesium case, very sturdy for something so light. My wife liked hers so much that to this day, 14 years later, she *still* refuses to use anything other than a Let's Note, which means that she's still using chunky mid 2000's designs with somewhat updated components like this new SV7.
Believe it or not, the most significant feature for her is the plastic strap that they put on the bottom that allows you to hold it with one and and use it with the other. No other laptop has that feature (I think the newest Let's Note don't even have it), and for some reason it's just something she has to have.
I agree though, Panasonic designs are at least 10 years out of date at this point. And they are so incredibly overpriced for the components that you get. The glory days of my Y2 are long gone by this point.
BTW my Y2 lasted me 7 years, until I got a first gen retina mac book pro in 2012 which I still use (so that's almost 6 years on that one). My laptop prior to the Y2 also went 7 years. The mac has actually been the worst of them all in terms of how it's aged, it's developed numerous dead pixels (even after a replacement screen that fixed the original ghosting/persistence problem) which never happened on any of the other ones, a screw fell out of the bottom and was lost, and the fan is starting to sometimes make grinding noise. But, I think it will last another year to get me to my 7 year laptop lifespan and then I think I'll just get another mac (because every other aspect of it has been awesome to be honest), assuming they still sell the non-touch-bar ones, I will not buy that touch bar garbage.
Oh I forgot to mention, the Y2 was fanless. Huge selling point for me, who has dealt with broken and aged fans in my laptops far too often.
I was able to put a very early generation PATA SSD in my Y2 eventually, that kept me happy for another year or two. It was an Mtron Mobi 3000 32 GB SSD if anyone can remember that far back. That was the early days of SSDs, when they were fringe products that just barely revealed how much better solid state was than spinning platters, but were still far superior to HDDs, although nowhere near as exceptional as SSDs have become over the years.
This is correct. I've used an CF-SZ6 with the discpad and you can spin your finger to scroll. The Logitech DiNovo keyboards had a similar approach (but those keyboards unfortunately lacked multitouch) and it works well, but definitely different.
The circular, raised design also prevents palm interference, an important concern on ultra portables since the keyboard and palm area is more compact.
Overall it wouldn't be my main complaint about the machines. Other than their outrageous price, Toughbooks' are basically the same price, same internals, but far more durable and premium feeling than the Let's Note. The Toughbook also holds its value exceptionally well.
The screen shape isn't too relevant to the touchpad shape, since the touchpad is a relative pointing device, not an absolute pointing device. The only advantage a rectangular touchpad gives you related to a rectangular screen is a bit more room to make a long diagonal cursor movement. But in those scenarios, proper cursor acceleration and software designed in accordance with Fitts' Law are sufficient.
I imagine that eliminating the upper corners of the touchpad makes palm rejection much less of a concern. Overall though, it looks like the touchpad is too small for me.
I struggled with touchpads generally with my hands being smaller than average. My palm, esp under the thumb area kept touching the pad due to palm and finger ergonomics. I wished for round trackpads for a very long time. Mostly I resorted using the point stick with the touchpad disabled.
Thinking about eastern asia demographic, this touchpad is probably an local/domestic oriented design.
At a guess, it's the most commonly used bit and does look nicer. If you look at most used laptops, the wear and tear on the touchpad is mostly in the centre part so I suppose it was just removing the other bits you don't need. Also less corners for dirt and grime to get trapped. I could be wrong.
Wasn't this series of machines formerly part of the Toughbook line-up?
The "screens are rectangular so touchpads should be too" argument only makes sense if you're using absolute positioning, which you aren't because your touchpad doesn't support it.
A circular touchpad is quirky, but far from a dealbreaker.
I don't get why everyone is bashing this laptop - It's perfect. Who cares how thin it is if it's light? Lots of ports, proper cooling, small touchpad so palm rejection isn't necessary, physical buttons for the left/right mouse buttons, long battery life. What's not to love?
I have to admit I didn't notice how spoiled I am by the sleek looks of modern machines until I saw this thing. I'll gladly choose solid cooling over "super thin", but such a laptop would look too retro for me. Heck, I think my thinkpad T61 looks better than this!
This looks almost eerily similar to my ThinkPad X201. Not necessarily a bad thing at all. Ditch the ODD (I haven't used one outside of my HTPC in... oh, at least five years) replace it with a dGPU with separate cooling (if you can fit an ODD, you can fit an MX150!), and I'd be sold. Don't mind the thickness at all as long as the weight is low and battery life is decent. 16:10 is good too, of course (although 3:2 would be even better!).
So fugly. I love it! So sick of ultrabooks and making them thin at the expense of other stuff. Give me some additional thickness with better cooling, battery life and connectivity. And a smaller screen (12 or even less) is fine. ODD can go away though.
This one bucks some trends I don't like and offers a lot that I do. TBH it just might be too ugly though
Huh, I like it. I really question the value of an optical drive in a laptop these days, I even swapped the one out in my Sony Vaio Z13 for another SSD, but otherwise, I like their old-school design principles. That 16:10 screen is great, the enormous cooling vents functional, but that tiny trackpad looks like it could be a bit irritating.
I was all "Yes! Yes!" until I saw the insane pricing. A chunky laptop priced at $3000 isn't just optimistic, it's plain crazy. There's no way these machines will sell anywhere outside Japan.
That said, I hope other manufacturers take note of some good bits about these machines. A light and durable plastic body can take more punishment and weighs less than aluminum while being cheaper than carbon fiber. I'd ditch the optical drive in favor of a second HDD bay and hopefully a large 21-hour battery can fit into a thinner 1" high chassis.
Oh, and please stop using accumulator: it's like a 19th century term for a battery pack.
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PeachNCream - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
"User preferences are different in Japan, which is why Panasonic still offers 12”-class laptops with optical drives, thick replaceable batteries and plenty of connectors."I have to agree with the Japanese market on laptop preferences. I'd be okay with a roughly 12 inch screen laptop that has better cooling and an easily replaced battery that was a 1 to 1.5 inches thick in order to handle those additional capabilities. Some might balk at the price, but that's fairly reasonable for the Japanese economy with its relatively high cost of living.
PixyMisa - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
Chunky lil' nugget.Looks like designers from 2002 got their hands on components from 2018. Not bad, but certainly different.
IGTrading - Wednesday, February 14, 2018 - link
I love these!These are very reliable & truly productive tools.
I'm not a wimp :) so I can carry 1 Kilo of extreme high-quality/productivity/performance laptop.
The ODD is sooooo useful for quick reliable backups when information is sensitive and you don't want to keep it online or on the laptop (that can be hacked and info gets accessed before you realize) and you don't want to keep all in one place like a portable HDD which is easily stolen, copied, broken.
Often the "thin" laptop and the external ODD are heavier than this integrated solution so why not the f*ck integrate them ?!
Also the ODD can be made swap-able with an extra battery or a HDD/SSD bay.
It makes no sense to not integrate ODDs in laptops unless you're shooting for extreme lightness and thinness, but unfortunately now MOST laptops come without, while the price is higher despite lesser hardware.
Also I really appreciate the ruggedness and I would have thought this would become mainstream after 2015, but apparently laptops are less and less reliable now :(
Anyway , I love these. Laptops are tools . not fashion statements and making them fashionable should not affect our productivity and the reliability of the product.
impressive job Panasonic!
Cihan Kaygusuz - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
A throwback laptop from 90's. What a joke!shabby - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
The 90's called, they want their laptops back... its the first thing that popped into my head.Lord of the Bored - Thursday, February 15, 2018 - link
They can have their laptop when they pry it from my cold, dead hands!...
No, actually, they can have it now. Passive-matrix 800x600 displays are poop.
chrnochime - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
What would we do without your priceless comment /scolinstu - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
Has anyone ever figured out the reasoning behind a circular touchpad? Is the screen circular? No? Please, a rectangular touchpad please, thank you.bji - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
Well originally, and I don't know if this is still true, they had a "feature" where you can run your finger around the touchpad in a circular motion to scroll up or down. Kind of like "infinite scrolling" if you want it because you can just keep swirling around.To be honest it wasn't all that useful in my opinion, and not really any significant improvement over just sliding your finger up or down on a rectangular trackpad and then lifting and repositioning it to continue the scroll if you want to.
I owned a couple of the "Let's Note" series in the mid to late 2000's. Specifically the T2 (for my wife) and Y2 (for me). The Y2 was awesome in its time - 3.3 lbs weight, 14.1 inch display, magnesium case, very sturdy for something so light. My wife liked hers so much that to this day, 14 years later, she *still* refuses to use anything other than a Let's Note, which means that she's still using chunky mid 2000's designs with somewhat updated components like this new SV7.
Believe it or not, the most significant feature for her is the plastic strap that they put on the bottom that allows you to hold it with one and and use it with the other. No other laptop has that feature (I think the newest Let's Note don't even have it), and for some reason it's just something she has to have.
I agree though, Panasonic designs are at least 10 years out of date at this point. And they are so incredibly overpriced for the components that you get. The glory days of my Y2 are long gone by this point.
BTW my Y2 lasted me 7 years, until I got a first gen retina mac book pro in 2012 which I still use (so that's almost 6 years on that one). My laptop prior to the Y2 also went 7 years. The mac has actually been the worst of them all in terms of how it's aged, it's developed numerous dead pixels (even after a replacement screen that fixed the original ghosting/persistence problem) which never happened on any of the other ones, a screw fell out of the bottom and was lost, and the fan is starting to sometimes make grinding noise. But, I think it will last another year to get me to my 7 year laptop lifespan and then I think I'll just get another mac (because every other aspect of it has been awesome to be honest), assuming they still sell the non-touch-bar ones, I will not buy that touch bar garbage.
bji - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
Oh I forgot to mention, the Y2 was fanless. Huge selling point for me, who has dealt with broken and aged fans in my laptops far too often.I was able to put a very early generation PATA SSD in my Y2 eventually, that kept me happy for another year or two. It was an Mtron Mobi 3000 32 GB SSD if anyone can remember that far back. That was the early days of SSDs, when they were fringe products that just barely revealed how much better solid state was than spinning platters, but were still far superior to HDDs, although nowhere near as exceptional as SSDs have become over the years.
Samus - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
This is correct. I've used an CF-SZ6 with the discpad and you can spin your finger to scroll. The Logitech DiNovo keyboards had a similar approach (but those keyboards unfortunately lacked multitouch) and it works well, but definitely different.The circular, raised design also prevents palm interference, an important concern on ultra portables since the keyboard and palm area is more compact.
Overall it wouldn't be my main complaint about the machines. Other than their outrageous price, Toughbooks' are basically the same price, same internals, but far more durable and premium feeling than the Let's Note. The Toughbook also holds its value exceptionally well.
Billy Tallis - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
The screen shape isn't too relevant to the touchpad shape, since the touchpad is a relative pointing device, not an absolute pointing device. The only advantage a rectangular touchpad gives you related to a rectangular screen is a bit more room to make a long diagonal cursor movement. But in those scenarios, proper cursor acceleration and software designed in accordance with Fitts' Law are sufficient.I imagine that eliminating the upper corners of the touchpad makes palm rejection much less of a concern. Overall though, it looks like the touchpad is too small for me.
PEJUman - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
I struggled with touchpads generally with my hands being smaller than average. My palm, esp under the thumb area kept touching the pad due to palm and finger ergonomics. I wished for round trackpads for a very long time. Mostly I resorted using the point stick with the touchpad disabled.Thinking about eastern asia demographic, this touchpad is probably an local/domestic oriented design.
plewis00 - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
At a guess, it's the most commonly used bit and does look nicer. If you look at most used laptops, the wear and tear on the touchpad is mostly in the centre part so I suppose it was just removing the other bits you don't need. Also less corners for dirt and grime to get trapped. I could be wrong.Wasn't this series of machines formerly part of the Toughbook line-up?
Lord of the Bored - Thursday, February 15, 2018 - link
The "screens are rectangular so touchpads should be too" argument only makes sense if you're using absolute positioning, which you aren't because your touchpad doesn't support it.A circular touchpad is quirky, but far from a dealbreaker.
p1esk - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
Are these from "one laptop per child" program? They should offer them for under $100 in developing countries.boogerlad - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
I don't get why everyone is bashing this laptop - It's perfect. Who cares how thin it is if it's light? Lots of ports, proper cooling, small touchpad so palm rejection isn't necessary, physical buttons for the left/right mouse buttons, long battery life. What's not to love?Holliday75 - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
Its not "cool".MrSpadge - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
I have to admit I didn't notice how spoiled I am by the sleek looks of modern machines until I saw this thing. I'll gladly choose solid cooling over "super thin", but such a laptop would look too retro for me. Heck, I think my thinkpad T61 looks better than this!Valantar - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
This looks almost eerily similar to my ThinkPad X201. Not necessarily a bad thing at all. Ditch the ODD (I haven't used one outside of my HTPC in... oh, at least five years) replace it with a dGPU with separate cooling (if you can fit an ODD, you can fit an MX150!), and I'd be sold. Don't mind the thickness at all as long as the weight is low and battery life is decent. 16:10 is good too, of course (although 3:2 would be even better!).ZeDestructor - Tuesday, February 13, 2018 - link
Add a metal chassis and a UHD 4K screen and you have my attention tooMamiyaOtaru - Wednesday, February 14, 2018 - link
So fugly. I love it! So sick of ultrabooks and making them thin at the expense of other stuff. Give me some additional thickness with better cooling, battery life and connectivity. And a smaller screen (12 or even less) is fine. ODD can go away though.This one bucks some trends I don't like and offers a lot that I do. TBH it just might be too ugly though
piroroadkill - Wednesday, February 14, 2018 - link
Huh, I like it. I really question the value of an optical drive in a laptop these days, I even swapped the one out in my Sony Vaio Z13 for another SSD, but otherwise, I like their old-school design principles. That 16:10 screen is great, the enormous cooling vents functional, but that tiny trackpad looks like it could be a bit irritating.seetohey - Wednesday, February 14, 2018 - link
Does anyone know if the TB3 port has 4 lanes?serendip - Thursday, February 15, 2018 - link
I was all "Yes! Yes!" until I saw the insane pricing. A chunky laptop priced at $3000 isn't just optimistic, it's plain crazy. There's no way these machines will sell anywhere outside Japan.That said, I hope other manufacturers take note of some good bits about these machines. A light and durable plastic body can take more punishment and weighs less than aluminum while being cheaper than carbon fiber. I'd ditch the optical drive in favor of a second HDD bay and hopefully a large 21-hour battery can fit into a thinner 1" high chassis.
Oh, and please stop using accumulator: it's like a 19th century term for a battery pack.