Panasonic Toughbook

[Malvado]

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Panasonic is continuing their Android ventures with another forthcoming device. This time, it’s called the Toughbook, and as its name implies, will be built to last. It’ll obviously be geared at business professionals, namely those who spend a good amount of time doing field work. (Construction workers, anyone?) The device is quite big for this market, clocking in at 10.1 inches.
It’ll have a 720p glare-reflective bright display for use in direct sunlight. It’ll have multi-touch capabilities and will come with a stylus. GPS and 3G radios will be inside, of course. No other specs – like which version of Android it’ll be running when it launches or what kind of processor it’ll have – were mentioned. We’d pray for Honeycomb, of course, but a business-grade tablet like this often requires heavy customization.
It remains to be seen how exactly Panasonic will play this. They could either offer it wholesale or through special order for business, or give consumers a chance to get one of their own if a tough tablet is what they need. In any case, don’t expect to see any of this until Q4 2011

SOURCE: Panasonic's Android Toughbook Adds Diversity to Tablet Market | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

 

[gadgetrants]

Here is the most interesting feature, and it's NOT THE BUILD: as far as I can tell, this is the first Android tablet with a 4:3 aspect ratio. OK, there are some also-rans (like the Pandigital Novel), but I'm talking about mainstream, Froyo/Gingerbread/Honeycomb ready, tablets.

I've been ranting on this issue for over a year: why is the iPad 4:3, while all the Android tabs are 16:9 and 16:10? The knee-jerk answer is, "Android is better, because you don't get black bars during movies." What a dumb answer...you could just watch a movie on a 4:3 device, and tell yourself the "black bars" are really part of the bezel. OK, that will probably fail, but the point is that it's one of many aspects of a tablet function. There are many other "ergonomic" considerations, besides watching movies in landscape orientation. Personally, I think reading websites and news on a 16:9 device is a b****.

The end of my rant: for now, the iPad has a huge lead (and admittedly, head start) over the Android crowd. I'm not suggesting that Android-tab makers should clone an iPad, but the fact that it's 4:3 probably might be an issue, sales-wise.

-Matt

 

[Limbwalker]

Keep the new tablets coming. As the flood od tablets hits the market the prices will start to plummet. Me Likey . . . dancedroid