It’s audacious. PC sales are slowing up, so tech companies need to come up with new product lines to excite the public. Microsoft is blurring the lines between tablets and PC’s with Windows 8, and manufacturers are starting to develop hardware based on that shift.
Panasonic is making the Toughpad 4K a real product. A year ago they showed off a proof of concept 4K display running Windows. Soon you’ll be able to buy one!
This 20″ display has a resolution of 3840×2560, and is being marketed towards graphics and design professionals. In addition to touch controls, there’s the option to use an inductive stylus to get work done. Powered by a Core i5, 8GB of RAM, NVIDIA graphics, and up to 256GB of solid state storage, Panasonic is smudging the lines on “portable” computing. There needs to be a new classification for these types of slate. Something like “Semi-Mobile”.
Impressively, this thing is actually battery powered, and those high performance guts can run for around two hours without being connected to an outlet. At only five pounds, you could conceivably leave the house with the Toughpad. Something you’d never really consider doing with an iMac for example. It opens up some interesting possibilities for temporary workstations and situations where you’d need visuals like presentations. Instead of lugging a laptop and a projector, just pack up your Toughpad.
We’ll see more of this type of product soon in the coming months, as even Sony is releasing a “semi-mobile” computer.
No info on a USA release, but Toughpad 4K should arrive in Europe the middle of November. Expect it to drop for around  €4,500 (about $6000).
(picture via @Windows)
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