back to article Hands on: Panasonic bakes a 20-INCH tablet for big biz to swallow

At the IFA trade show this week, Panasonic shed more light on the latest addition to its Toughpad range, a 20in, 4K resolution monster that’s only 12.5mm thick. Yes it’s the same tablet it teased the press with at CES at the beginning of the year, but it’ll be available to purchase before the end of it. Panasonic 4K Toughpad …

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  1. poopypants

    A brilliant plan

    Stick this on the back of your car when you are driving and rent it out for advertising space. That would make it tax deductible.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A brilliant plan

      Your only problem is any random prat with one of those pens adding "I wish my wife was this dirty" :)

    2. LarsG

      Would need a man bag

      A fu*king big one.

  2. CADmonkey

    It's CAD, Jim...

    ...but without the keyboard shortcuts or the 5-button mouse it sounds like it would be very tiring to work with, especially one-handed, notebook-and-pen style.

    An On-screen keyboard would reduce the useful display size. Adding a KB and mouse (and a pivoting stand) would make the touchscreen redundant.

    The hardware specs. seem up to the job, though.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: It's CAD, Jim...

      There are some applications that work better with a touch-screen (a virtual mixing desk, for example), just as there are many that are better used with mouse and keyboard, or indeed a stylus.

  3. big_D Silver badge

    One problem...

    Well, there may be several problems, but the glaringly obvious one is its illsuitedness to CAD use.

    Don't most CAD packages require you to have a certified (aka Quadro or FireGL) graphics card/chip in order to obtain support?

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: One problem...

      Some do make that requirement, but most allow consumer hardware, or can be tricked into thinking your GeForce is a Quadro. Anyway, in the article:

      However, the Performance model won’t be seen until 2014 and benefits from a Core i7 chip (TBA), 8GB of RAM (16GB max) with an Nvidia Quadro GPU.

    2. CADmonkey

      Re: One problem...

      There may well be several probelms, but certified video drivers aren't really one of them.

      I've got a Quadro card and it did indeed have certified drivers right up until Serious Sam 3 refused to work.

      Oh, and also as soon as AutoCAD released their next version, like they do every April, there were no Quadro drivers for months and months. And certified drivers have NEVER applied to Autocad verticals.

      If someone was paying me to go on site and make sumptuous rendered models rotate on a screen to the oohs and aahs of my client then I'd have nothing to complain about. Sadly that seems to be a bit of a niche market that I am unable to exploit.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wacom can't be happy..

    These tablets offer in principle what the mega expensive Cintiq digitisers now provide: a screen and a pen directly interacting with each other.

    I discovered this when I got an iPad: the Wacom tablet has since basically lived in a drawer, although I'm planning to get hold of one of those Wacom pressure sensitive iPad pens..

    1. big_D Silver badge

      Re: Wacom can't be happy..

      I prefer the Wacom digitizer layer on the Windows and Android tablets, such as the Samsung ATIV and Galaxy Note series.

    2. mmeier

      Re: Wacom can't be happy..

      If you can life with crayon precision and no pressure than the stuff is okay. If not you still need Wacom/Ntrig no matter wether mobile device or monitor.

      And that Panasonic is not cheap (4.500 funny money, more that 3500€) compared to a 22'' Cintiq (slightly less than 3000€). It also shares the "border" problem with the Wacom unit.

      A "rimless tablet" style unit would be nice

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Advantages of split-screen working

    Oh wow, welcome back the first release of Windows ! Oh actually, wait, I think that might have had more advanced windowing capabilities.

  6. no_RS

    That's not a tablet, more like a grave stone..

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yeah, but can you change the batteries?

    Or is it throwaway like many other tablets?

  8. Anonymous Blowhard

    Has anyone told Dom Joly yet?

  9. Mikel

    Another Windows tablet?

    And only $6000 for the non-performance version.

    It's like I'm living in a bizarre world they let people with Alzheimer's design things. "Here dear. I invented you a Windows tablet." "Thanks Grandma. It's lovely. I'll put it with the other six."

  10. Steve Brooks

    Uses?

    Have only ever seen one suggested practical use for a tablet this size, turn it into a tray at a diner, they can then use it to hold food for customers and have runnings ads for the customer to look at while eating. Of course it would be a slightly more expensive than your traditional plastic tray, but from some tablets I have seen around, about the same quality!

  11. Amorous Cowherder
    Holmes

    Could be interesting in a tethered, studio photo shoot environment. Instant display of the raw image, pull out the pen and try a few non-destructive adjustments to see if the shoot's going as planned.

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