Digital Trends

Panasonic Toughbook W2 October 5th, 2003 | by Brandon King

Introduction

Like the Sony VIAO TR1A, the Panasonic W2 is an ultra-ultra light Intel Centrino based laptop. Weighing only 2.8 lbs, we found ourselves double checking our carrying cases to make sure it hadn't evaporated, or slipped out between the thread fibers. The screen measures a manageable 12.1”, and comes with 256MB RAM and a 40GB hard drive. At 900HMz, the Pentium-M processor delivers just enough power to keep performance well within the acceptable range. The W2 comes standard with a DVD/CD-RW drive. Unfortunately, it is only available in Japan, but can be imported, complete with an English version of the bundled software, from several companies, such as iCube.

Review

The Panasonic W2 is a close contender to the Sony VAIO TR1A in all categories. It is disturbingly light, paper thin (okay, 1” thin), and sports an internal combo drive. The styling is excellent at a first approximation, but lacks in a couple categories.

On the positive side, the first thing we noted was the innovative CD loading style. Part of the cover next to the touch pad and below the keyboard pops up, revealing the disc tray. The keyboard has an anime-esque paint job, that we really liked in a cheesy “We understood Akira” way. We also liked the mouse pad, and gave extra design kudos for a circular mouse pad area. The mouse buttons are located on what looks like the frame to the circular mouse pad and have decent sensitivity. While the mouse pad does not function any differently, and is not easier to use, bucking the rectangular mouse pad trend results in a refreshing visual effect.

While the plastic housing is convincing, it feels easy to scratch or crack. Our biggest annoyance was the placement of the eject and power buttons. Both are the same style, size, and located in adjacent sides of the front left corner. Nearly every other attempt to eject the CD resulted in the computer shutting down. Also, the ports appear to just be cut out of the case with no protection to keep pins from bending, which takes away from the overall aesthetics.

There are no ports located across the back. It appears that Panasonic wanted to avoid the back end battery lump, but still keep the unit balanced correctly. Likewise, there are no ports on the front edge of the unit, just your standard indicators, power button, and the lid open latch. Along the left side are the VGA-out, 2 USB 2.0, audio-in, and audio-out port, along with the DVD eject slide button. The right side contains the Ethernet, modem, PC card, and SD media slots. There are no unidentifiable contacts or pins, so it looks like there's not much chance of a port replicator or docking station in the future, but the bottom casing does has an unidentifiable indentation that might indicate future revisions could have the option.