Hasta La Gadget!

I am quite sure that by now, many of us would have set our sights on Apple unveiling a new iPhone, or perhaps even two if plenty of pre-release photos of a budget-oriented iPhone 5C were to be believed, in addition to the possibility of a new tablet. Well, regardless of what tablet Apple announces later today, if any, I am convinced that it will not be able to hold a candle to the size as well as resolution of the Panasonic Toughpad 4K UT-MB5 tablet. After all, this bad boy is touted to be the first 20” tablet in the world that sports 4K resolution, now how about that for some truly eye popping visuals?

The Panasonic Toughpad 4K UT-MB5 tablet was specially developed for sales, marketing and media professionals as part of their high end and new Ultra-High Definition Toughpad range. Make no mistake about it, this was never meant to be a commercial tablet for the masses, but rather, it will be a specialist performance model that is ideal for 3D modelling and CAD applications, and would come in handy when it is used in the hands of technical professionals such as engineers, architects and designers.

Your eyes will appreciate the 4K resolution which is said to be over four times better than HD at 3840 x 2560 pixels, and the name itself, the Toughpad 4K UT-MB5, also lends a rather obvious clue that this is going to be one business-minded yet rugged, portable tablet which will be able to break new ground in digital viewing with 4K resolution, collaborative working with touchscreen capabilities as well as feature a special Panasonic Electronic Touch Pen for pin-point accuracy and annotation. Other hardware specifications include a 15:10 aspect ratio and 230 pixels per inch, which makes it more than ideal to display large images, A3 drawings, brochures and multimedia. It will run on an Intel Core i5 processor, has up to 8GB RAM, and boasts of NVIDIA GeForce graphics, tipping the scales at 2.35kg and measuring 12.5mm thin.

Press Release
[ Panasonic Toughpad 4K UT-MB5 is first 20” tablet with 4K resolution display in the world copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Panasonic’s 4K Toughpad tablet initially debuted at CES in January, but here at IFA in Berlin, the company is finally ready to shed some light on availability. Speaking at a press conference focused on the device, GM Jan Kampfer detailed the giant slate, which includes a fiberglass housing and sports a 3,840 x 2,560 (230 ppi) power-efficient IPS display with 176-degree viewing angles. The UT-MB5 supports 10-finger touch and includes a Bluetooth-enabled optical Anoto Live Pen with a six-hour battery life and palm rejection. The Toughpad was designed with creative types in mind, such as artists and architects — though we wouldn’t mind having one around as a fantastic (albeit pricey) portable 4K movie viewer.

There will be two models: a Standard flavor that weighs in 2.3kg and includes 4GB (expandable to 8GB) of RAM and a 128GB SSD, and a 2.7kg Performance model with 8GB RAM (expandable to 16GB) and a 256GB SSD. The company is targeting design pros with that latter version, such as those working with 3D modeling tools, while the lower-powered spec would be a better fit for healthcare users, retail or sales professionals. Panasonic aimed for workstation performance here, so both devices include Intel Core i5 processors and run on Windows 8.1. There are three USB 3.0 ports, HDMI out, an SD card slot and an optional desktop cradle and mounting point adapter. They’re also quite durable, and are reinforced to survive 76 cm (2.5 ft) drops. The Standard model will ship in November, while the Performance slate is expected in early 2014.

Update: Microsoft is reporting that the device will ship in the US and Europe beginning this Saturday, September 7th, but Panasonic executives at the IFA event are confirming a November timeframe. The Toughpad on stage is being described as a “prototype,” further reinforcing that the slate is not ready to ship.

Update 2: Panasonic reps quoted pricing for the standard version at €4,508 (about $6,000), with the Performance version MSRP to be announced. The optional pen will retail for €280 (about $370).

Follow all of our IFA 2013 coverage by heading to our event hub!

Filed under: Tablets

Comments

No surprises here since Panasonic already unveiled most its TOUGHBOOKs and its TOUGHPAD last week at CES, but the news here is that these devices will be available in Japan starting from the end of this month for the CF-19, CF-31 and CF-H2 series, middle of February for the CF-C2 and middle of March for the FZ-G1 or TOUGHPAD.
But let’s start with the FZ-G1 or TOUGHPAD. Available in two flavors with a WWAN model and a Wireless-LAN one only the FZ-G1 will come by default with Windows 8, an …

[CES 2013] Panasonic’s CES Press Conference took place yesterday morning to which they announced a number of features for their Smart TVs, a bone-conducting headphone and a new LUMIX camera and it looks like they weren’t done showcasing some of their new products for 2013. One of which is their new Toughpad line of tablets.

Panasonic’s Toughpads, which, of course, are tablet versions of their popular Toughbook line will be receiving new version this year as there will be an Android and Windows 8 tablet.

The Toughpad JT-B1 is their new 7-inch Android tablet that runs Ice Cream Sandwich and features a 13MP rear-facing camera, 1.3MP front-facing camera, 1.5GHz dual-core TI OMAP 4660, 16GB of internal storage, 1GB of RAM, microSD slot, Bluetooth 4.0 and a micro-USB port. It has eight hours of battery life, an expansion port for barcode and MSR readers and has a 3-year warranty attached to it.

Panasonic’s other Toughpad is the FZ-G1 and is a 10-inch tablet that runs a full version of Windows 8, and is packed with a 1,920 x 1,200 display, 1.9GHz Ivy Bridge Intel Core i5-3437U vPro CPU, a 128GB SSD drive (upgradable to 256GB), up to 8GB of RAM and also has an eight-hour battery.

The Android-powered JT-B1 will be available in February for $1,300 while the Windows 8-powered Toughpad FZ-G1 will be available in March for $2,900. Just be sure if you’re going to spend all of that money on either of these tablets that you have one demanding job so you can feel the joy of throwing your tablet around without worrying about it getting busted.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Polaroid M7 Ready For Spring Debut, Asus Transformer All In One Seen With Android 4.1 Jelly Bean,