it's because it's much cheaper to equip 100s of classes with long vga cables. Long hdmi cables tend to get really expensive for some reason. and why do they care about upgrading when you're paying your kidney anyway
The only feature that really surprised me was optical drive. That takes up a lot of space in a laptop for a feature you don't see used that much anymore. Last time I bought a laptop with one of those was in 2010.
Reliable, this laptop has futuristic design rather than those greenwasher companies making. much more eco-friendly than what is sold on the big market now. lol
It should be mentioned that Let's Note is designed with durability in mind. Indeed, it resists 100kgf. Would you know the importance of this specific value in Japan? It is, the maximum force measured on the Tokyu Denentoshi Line, known as one of the busiest rail lines in Japan.
I comment as a Japanese person This computer is mainly used for sales when going to customer sites instead of the office. Its armor, which looks old, is made of aluminum and is made very rigid, making it very difficult to break if dropped. This is why users who use this machine outside rather than in the office prefer to use it. In addition, some older hotels in Japan (few of which exist these days) do not have Wi-Fi, but instead have wired LAN in each room. (In some cases, wired LAN is more stable than Wi-Fi, so it is preferable.) Also, to some extent, companies in Japan contract and use computers on a lease basis instead of purchasing them. Therefore, it is very convenient to be able to replace the battery yourself. This old-looking computer is actually a supercomputer that is quite specialized for business for Japan.
This is so useful as an on the go maintenance machine. And the port to clean the exhaust is genius. That's usually ultra tedious to dismantle a machine just to remove a layer of felt that has formed.
That port to blow out the heatsink dust is the most genius thing I've ever seen and I am now angry that it wasn't considered a standard QoL thing on all laptops for decades.
They could put a tube chamber for as soc to blow out heat & dust. It's really important Have you seen the new graphene fan blower via some graphene threads vibrating in a chamber?
Reaching that fan chute in my IBM Thinkpad X61t is a nightmare. After dismantling the whole thing, I have cut off the metal tabs to make the cover easier to remove.
I am a former Panasonic employee. The model of the laptop has not changed much from the past. Panasonic's laptops are very powerful, because the laptops are used in CNC machines where conditions are very oily and wet. Miraculously, the laptop still runs normally even though the laptop machine is full of oil and collent.Even though it's not a though book series. I've never seen a laptop with such power in any brand. 😁
@@pikachuchujelly7628 My VHS video recorders are Panasonic. Unfortunately later models changed from the reliable die cast metal drives to flimsy sheetmetal trash like all other brands, those fall apart when winding tape a few times per day and crinkle tape when the chassis warps by e.g. resting the case on uneven surfaces or worn cassette has too much tension.
I’m a surf photographer that use Panasonic lumix, all I can say is that they are unreal, I made the switch from full frame Nikons to the gh series because I wanted a lighter set up for travel, and I’m glad I did those little cameras a so though I had one flood with a water housing, dry out and still shoot fine. Dropped em in sand fine, covered in ash fine. One of those companies that never gets the credit they deserve
I work at a Japanese company and our bosses all had these, and the first time I saw it, I seriously thought it was just some old laptop they stubbornly refuse to replace... ...until I saw them charging with USB-C cables to some Anker power brick and running windows 11 more responsibly than my own current-gen laptop. And when we were briefly assigned in Japan, pretty much everyone had these in the office. Something we never got to see before going there since our company would supply Dell laptops for those working elsewhere outside Japan
How Interesting. I work for the European branch of a Japanese company in the IT dept., and we issue Dells for everyone - but the Japanese managing director has the notebook issued by the Japanese IT dept. and it's this model, too!
This laptop has been seen as a bit of status gear to have. It has always been more expensive than the other competitor, so it has a following along with ThinkPads and Macs. What's not stated here is that it's also known for durability compared to the other regular laptops (though not as much as toughbook by the same company that is used by many police departments abroad). So anyways, this is a bit of a flex to have one.
Japan still has some of the coolest gadgets. I remember a laptop that had a glass touchpad and it had a screen under it that had an interactive cat follow your finger around. This was in 2011 iirc
@@malo6748 Yeah, but way after 2011. Just shows the interesting dynamic of how Japanese companies are innovative, yet still release new things that have “died” elsewhere
this is one of japan's best strengths. they have been pivotal in terms of industrial and technological innovation, pioneering so many things we now all take for granted. though they also have their own unique culture around how they use consumer electronics that is special to them and that's cool. like there's a lot of things that get everyday use there we would think is strange over here, particularly with handheld devices
That scrolling thing actually seems really really useful as scrolling is one of the most annoying things on a trackpad. Especially if you are trying to select text at the same time.
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You can left click in a text where you want the selection to start then scroll as much as you want. Then press and hold shift and click where you want the selection to end.
Reminds me of how scrolling can work on Samsung smartwatches, easily one of my most favorite features of their watches. like my watch 5 pro, just run my finger around the edge of the watch face and scroll through whatever it is I'm doing and still see the stuff on the screen at the same time
Circular scrolling has been an option in Linux for something like 15 years, but it's been hidden away a long time. Just like edge scrolling is starting to be. Turns out when everybody just copies Apple, new customers to the market don't know there's an alternative to two finger scrolling.
Those technology is prepared for many legacy format that are still commonly used in Japan. It adds so many weight but it helps them to avoid the hassle of bringing so many extra adapters.
Let's note was always the premier domestic laptop for businessmen in Japan because of all the different ports it had and it's lightweight design. It was ungodly expensive, but made sense for business use. It also helped that other domestic competitors like NEC and Toshiba really dropped the ball in the 2000s, and it's only real competitor going into the 2010s were Thinkpads, and later, the X1 series. I used to work part-time at a Japanese company as a tech support, we did have a bunch of Let's Notes, but we eventually shifted to X1 Carbons as we no longer really needed the extra drives like the optical drives, and was much more cost effective. The current models still are great, but not many people can justify its price, even for business use. Their sister series, the Toughbooks, are still a great choice for extreme environments.
The western people need to stop on the "thin" craze and learn from them on the port availability. Dongles are dumb, admit it. Forget a ethernet dongle and you're screwed. I do wish we can choose the kind of ports on the device, that's the best. Might not need a VGA port, or do, or need a USB C port and so on. The DVD drive... Might be useful? But isn't Blu-ray catching up?
Toughbooks are awesome. I was a platoon leader as a conscript and my computer (the NCO in charge of calculating mortar trajectories and stuff) was always treating our Toughbook like shit and it never died on us in the field. Those things are built better than tanks. Battery life was occasionally an issue, since it needs to be on all the time. The last reserve exercise I was on, our generator died and even with all the battery redundancy it caused so much extra work.
@@bluecherrysakura I agree idk where this thin obsession came from, like sure it's nice to have a light laptop but to make it so thin that it harms the actual functionality of the fucking device, such as losing ports, worse cooling (or none at all!), being easier to break, and being unable to repair it yourself, is stupid
@@bluecherrysakura physical media are disappearing from the life of an average user. Although I personally agree that overreliance on dongles is dumb, it seems like most people who buy laptops are alright with it.
I lived in Japan for over 15 years from the early 2000s and this series was everywhere. It was also always pretty expensive. I don't think keeping the design and some of the features the same is due just to the aging society, though. It's kind of how things happen in Japan. Once there is something that works, then it's used forever and its hard to change. The government is still using floppy drives and it's not because they are scared to use USB drives or newer storage media. It's just because they've done it that way since they can remember, and it works, so they keep doing it, regardless of newer and more efficient options.
You disagreed about it being because of age... but then literally gave a perfect example of why it's about age. If what worked for that generation is why they kept it, then as that generation aged then the product has to fit that generation aka it's about age.
@@mito-pb8qgNot really. In japan, once something became some sort of tradition in any kind of organization, it would almost a taboo to change it, no matter how inefficient it is
@@FriedHam In fairness it worked for Nintendo, but it also held them back in the eyes of game developers. No wonder why practically all of the best-selling games on Nintendo platforms are first-party mascot franchises.
I recently bought an older Dell Precision M6700, and holy HELL, it's a nice laptop. You can even swap out the GPU in it. Yes, the GPU. The only problem with it is that it's heavy as shit. Full metal chassis with an incredibly beefy cooling solution along within it. It's a very big boi. But considering its incredible repairability, reliability, color-accurate screen, massive breadth of features, insanely good hardware and software backwards compatibility, and its (relatively) blistering performance considering its age... Worth it.
This pc is sold in most universities in Japan. It seems like university co-op ties up with panasonic. Sometimes university's equipments only have old type of socket, or digital documents in the library are only available in CD or DVD, so it may help students to do their work in school.
A most iconic example of “don’t let innovation get in the way of productivity”. Newer features don’t always translate to better productivity, compatibility, or even usability when there are other “legacy” systems to interface with.
Totally agree. It is tested and proven reliability of a feature almost always preferred over any new, flashy feature in workplaces. Life the RJ45. Of course Wifi is great, but it is definitely slower and less stable than a connected LAN. If someone ever gets angry because of a small lag in your game over wifi, imagine how irate that same person would be with an unstable wifi when he is required to work online with a squeezing deadline.
I had a Dell years ago where you could just remove the optical drive and put either a floppy drive, another hard drive, or another battery in that slot. That was amazing.
Dell C510/C610 had that -- one of the most serviceable laptops I ever worked on. Panel for RAM, panel for HDD, battery bay and battery/accessory bay, which had a CD, DVD, floppy option... I miss those days when you had so many options. I hope Framework comes out with things along that line
Dell Latitude D610. I had the spare battery in mine, made it last through an entire school day and the bus ride home. I recently tried to order a hard drive caddy for an experiment, but they accidentally sent another dvd drive lol.
I work for a Japanese company and I've seen these with some of the staff that have come from overseas. The previous models had a small door that opened for CD/DVD's and you slid the disc down under the keyboard rather than a tray coming out for them. At any rate, always found these interesting.
Yup, just pull the slider and the right side of palmrest pops open revealing the optical drive beneath, had a CF-SX3 with such feature, and that was a freaking thin and light 12" laptop. I've also taken it apart for some maintenance (repaste the CPU and access the second memory slot, since only one slot is accessible through the memory cover) and they really had some clever ways to cram lots of components and features (particularly the optical drive and the door opening mechanism) in very little space.
I had the older generation of this when I was a field engineer for Panasonic. I always loved it. The previous generation had an integrated handle that made it incredibly convenient.
Absolutely thrilled that you took a look at this laptop because I’m not exaggerating when I say that you see them everywhere in Japan. Office workers, students, teachers, these are usually the people using them and it took me a little while to figure out that they make modern versions of them instead of people clinging onto antiquated tech for some reason lol
@@danieloberhofer9035the 11657 is a great tigerlake cpu and is still viable for thin and lights laptops. My work laptop has that chip and it's pretty snappy.
It's actually bulky, but only Panasonic decided to trade off thickness for lightness. There's no other laptops around 1kg have plenty IO and long life batteries. Both are essential for business in Japan.
It's also for crushing resistance. Much of the bulk is empty space but it adds necessary compliance to prevent display and the entire laptop from getting nicked in the corners or bent in half.
I went to a trade convention in Japan and saw SO MANY OF THESE!! I was so confused like why does everyone have these old laptops? It's good to know they aren't actually old!
@verifeli those are brand new laptops. If you mean to upgrade the inner components, but keep the chassis the same, you are right. Otherwise you are wrong.
The Let's Note series was specifically designed for businessmen to use while traveling, particularly on the train. I still see guys on the Yamanote Line in Tokyo using these. They're extremely light and have insane battery life, although they do charge very slowly. My daily work PC is a older Let's Note CF-SZ6 that I bought for $200. I installed Arch Linux and i3wm and it runs like a dream. I still use it for presentations, documents, Zoom meetings, and so on.
I always noticed that a lot of electronics from Japan seem almost... shifted in time in terms of aesthetic. I never knew it was due to age demographic thing though. I thought it was more of a "fads move in cycles" kind of thing.
@@olotocolothe contactless payment is not entirely true. Japan has been pushing their IC transport cards heavily as a payment method, both in transit and regular payment. Most convenient stores and restaurants can use IC cards to pay, not to mention the numerous QR based payments options available.
@@NavinF credit cards have never worked everywhere in Japan - so this filled a vacuum. Japan has been a cash society for ever - even though ATM's stop working on Sunday nights. But contactless payment is amazing - you can use your watch/phone to get on a train, or buy a drink from the vending machine, or buy something at the conbini. Much more convenient than credit card.
@@zoeherriot I *am* talking about contactless payments lol. In the US everyone adds their credit cards to their phone/watch and taps the terminal with the device. Also don't you still need credit cards for online purchases?
@@NavinF Yes, that's how it works in Japan too. Everyone has credit cards here, but they work a bit different. They are always paid off at the end of the month - and the limits are low. But it is not a credit card culture. But yes, you tie your credit card to a device and use that to charge a contactless card - like Suica. You can of course use your credit card directly - but using it to charge a card like the Suica is quite useful. Suica has and advantage in that it is used as your train pass - and can also be linked to your company so they pay your train fees. But it is also used EVERYWHERE. Including vending machines. So it would be really expensive to switch all that infrastructure over to directly using credit cards, and honestly, not as convenient.
I like the design of early-late 2000s laptops way more than practically anything else on the market today. Each one had cool unique designs, and now pretty much all laptops are boring slabs with a logo on them, the only exception being some gaming laptops
Reminds me a bit of my Fujitsu LifeBook T4215. Sadly the keyboard is yellowed and the battery is so dead that the laptop freezes if the battery is in, and the wacom digitizer doesn't work anymore (probably a broken cable or loose connection)
also factor of japan is they live in smaller buildings mostly hence why laptop is more liked then say custom bigger pc with big tower etc as to save space they have.
@@ravenspurplebeats5412 Even when it comes to gaming, there is a very strong preference of consoles and especially handhelds, over PCs. Size definitely plays a part.
@@am_pm.17not anymore though since the pandemic, PC gaming is getting increasing popular And handheld laptops used to be pretty popular too in Japan, so it's not just consoles. The transmeta Crusoe saw great success in the 2000s. Nowadays the market is basically dominated by GPD since Japanese manufacturers stopped making UMPCs with the advent of smartphones
We always think of Japan as being high tech but they also have a tendency to follow established processes without deviating, to a fault sometimes. Japanese businesses and especially the government have historically had an obsession with hard copy files and physical media like floppy and optical disks. I can’t imagine having to do IT there but laptops like these would probably help a lot in bridging the gap.
Honestly? Owning local backups is a good idea. You shouldn't put your trust in third parties and many failure points when you can just not. That said, stuff like sticking hard to Internet Explorer and ActiveX until forced to switch is simply dumb.
I think the government is finally softening on floppy disks (subbed to too many Japan based channels to remember which one said it), but fax still seems to be in it for the long haul😅. I guess this stuff won't change unless they crack the demographic collapse through babies or more open borders, both things they struggle heavily with 🤷🏾♂️
It's kinda ridiculous how it's getting less popular in the west... given a choice between DVD rental and something worthless like Netflix... the choice is clear... DVDs are the way to go.
@@mallmann72 2000 tech thing is the most amazing thing, while today tech is improving but its limit what user does, I like my bulkies ThinkPad more than my x1 carbon
I don't know why non-Japanese people talk about Japan as if they know what they're talking about, but as a Japanese person I can tell you that DVD rental has already been unpopular in Japan for several years and is far from being a "big thing". It's just that in Japan, compared to the West, there's still a certain demand for physical CDs and DVDs that needs to be met.
These laptops are not only used by IT companies but virtually every mid to large sized company with mobile service. They have options to add 4G modems for connectivity anywhere. What Linus didn't mention was that when these companies upgrade the laptops, they sell them in bulk to second hand electronics shops here in Japan or auction websites. You can pick one up for relatively cheap, and they are everywhere. I'm currently using an Ivy bridge model with extra long life battery and 8GB of upgradeable RAM (I guess they took that away in the new ones)
Lol they are definitely all over every secondhand shop, I just mentioned this in another comment. It is honestly crazy how many of them are floating around out there!
The Let's Note was sold as a TOUGH laptop. Panasonic once advertised it that it was able to withstand 100kg of pressure in a super crowded Japanese rush hour metro while most other computers couldn't withstand 50kg of pressure. The Let's Note also has a sister brand called "TOUGHBOOK" which is basically Let's Notes buffed up to MIL-STD (U.S. Military standards) and they are used by the US Army, Japanese Army and so on... They are also known to be installed in US police cars too.
@@davetech1269 Windows has never been good. It's had good features, that sometimes Microsoft steals from us ('never combine' windows 11 springs to mind), but you can't go and tell me you think windows 1.0 is better than 10 or 11, that's just plain old smoothbrain talk.
They are super durable and practical, that's why they are still popular. Japanese companies often buy them for workers since they only look for practicality. The keyboard is mushy since it has a waterproof film underneath. Little bit of splashing coffee won't break them. They are ugly and bulky but battery life is amazing.
Circular scrolling is supported in most trackpad hardware, I believe. It's usually called "Circular scrolling" or "Chiral Scrolling". There are tons of instructions on the Internet about how to enable it.
Interesting.. I've used a Di Novo edge for quite awhile so I've been used to circular scrolling but I didn't know about using it on other trackpads. Will have to look into this!
I have been using this model when I was in Japan. And it's the most practical laptop and travel-friendly I've ever used because of its weight. As an office worker in marketing and sales, you have to go to multiple places everyday. It's easy to store inside even normal work (woman's!) tote bag and you can type in if you need to response to email inside train stations or any nearest spots. I have moved on from this laptop because my country doesn't have this kind of laptop anymore, but I would have bought buy this again plainly because of its weight and compact design.
Also the VGA port and DVD drive is for sure for officework and presentations, the latter in case some old archive data in your office is stored in DVDs, and the former in the case where your office doesn't offer HDMI cables for the projector.
They really outcompeted ThinkPad, I think. Panasonic AC is 100% compatible with old IBM, it's the same 16V round barrel. If you knew old T and X Series ThinkPads it's really Chevy Volt vs Toyota Prius kinds of differences.
Half my life is in Japan, and I carried a Let's Note for about a decade. It was a delight in every way. Super solid and reliable. Only wish the line evolved. Japan has always offered a greater variety of notebook form factors than are available to us in the West. It's not so much about focusing on an older population, Japanese business is simply more consumer focused in general.
@@snintendog By evolving I mean things like sacrificing a wee bit of portability for a better/larger display, keyboard, that sort of thing. This could have happened without affecting reliability.
@@snintendogit's not even fixing thimgs.. It's changing a design for advertising etc... It doesn't help the consumers at all.. One of the biggest complaints I get now is people demanding for me to change their apps back to what they bought/used for years.. To many companies fully change the gui of apps today just becsue while ignoring the customers..
That seems like kind of a strange thing to say, that the businesses have a customer focus. I've always heard that restaurants generally will not let you customize dishes (e.g., you can't ask them to leave out an ingredient).
This reminds me of the first laptop I ever had, I love it! I miss having ports, I miss the DVD drive and I miss having physical buttons on the trackpad.
The heatsink cleaning access port is legit. So many of my friend's laptops that i've "fixed" were just clogged with dust, hair, lint, etc. Also the optical drive hit me in the feels recently too. I made a new pc case, and when I was transferring over components I realized I had a drdr drive in my old case. I just couldn't throw it out. I put it in the new case because I MAY need it in the future, ignoring the fact that I havent needed it for the last decade...
My friend had a laptop that he said kept “shutting off” every 10 minutes. So I opened it up and damn near pulled a sock worth of lint out of the fan. I told him to stop setting it on his bed or floor, or at least set it on something solid and flat like a book if he wanted to set it on his bed.
I would unironically love to bring back aesthetics from that era for tech in general just with modern tech inside. An early 2000's inspired smartphone design, these kinds of laptops, a smart TV, VR headset, headphones, gaming peripherals, everything
@@shyguy4617 Its not. These new glass slabs are awful. They take up way too much space, they're hard to type on, and they're easy to break. If I wanted a big screen I'd get a tablet. The BlackBerry was the perfect smartphone. Great software suite, trackball and keyboard so you didn't have to bother with touch controls, no ads, a screen big enough for productivity, but small enough to be easily pocketable.
The keyboard does make a lot of sense because it is made for Japanese people. Typewriting in Japanese can't be done like western style typing. They do not type whole words like we do. They have to use semi automatic completion where they type some kana and select the word or sentence that they want to be written. The keyboard is made for this. Also those notebooks are everywhere in Japan. Japan is known for keeping things that do work and they don't like to make big changes on such things. So that thing does look old but is exactly what they want and need. It is not only about the old democraphic of Japan. Don't change what does work.
I've been using a Panasonic Let's Note SZ for the past couple of years since importing it from Japan, and I can confidently say its one of the best laptops I have ever used. The circular trackpad and build quality are excellent. I'm actually quite tempted to go through the trouble of importing one of the new models. So happy you got a chance to look at one of these!
As someone who works in Japan I can say the optical drive makes a lot of sense. There are a few facilities I have been in that prohibit data to go in/out unless it's on optical media. I once I had to go to the convenience store and buy a DVD so I could get the data from a DUT in a test facility.
Yaaay for Panasonic! They built the 'ToughBooks' for LEA for years, and it's good to see they retained the things that people actually use on a regular basis. I could care less if it actually weighs 4 or 5 lbs. Functionality is king!😍👍
Had a ToughBook back in the day and damn that thing was built like a tank. Not even 4 years of high school and 1st 2 years of college could break it. I miss it big time
I use toughbooks on a daily basis. They're big and bulky but I've never had one stop working. They just work. You're not gaming on them and the programs we run are generally very low resource, but these things get the absolute crap beat out of them, especially the ones on the ambulances. Oh and they're absolutely horrible to type on. Don't plan on writing any essays. But the ones we use the keyboard is usually the rubber "water resistant" version , so I can't really criticize. You can always use your own BT one and the docks in the station/offices have much better keyboards for writing reports. We mostly have CF-19's and CF-31's, with a few CF-53's and G2's here and there. We have 3 CF-40s for the deputies and chief. I personally use a CF-53 for my side job and used a CF-19 before that, which continues to work despite a giant gash in the metalized screen housing. I threw a true SSD in the 19 and 53 over the ruggedized HDD and maxed out RAM and they're pretty much as fast as the more recent offerings. You can pick up a 19 or 53 for $200 to $500 on ebay. The sites offering "refurbished" ones are a complete rip off, stay away. I got my 53 for around $300 since it had no OS installed. My 19 was about $250.
Just started watching and I have one of these labeled as a tough book. Slightly diff model and old but I love it as an emulation station and writing tool. Always wanted to try and run it over with a car to see how tough it was. Had it for like 10 years or so.
I remember a website that sold products directly from Akihabara that had laptops that looked exactly like this and, sure enough, this was back in 2004. At the time I thought they were neat looking, at least. That said while we think of Japan when it comes to leading technology they also hang onto stuff the longest due to an older population refusing to move forward. Faxes are still incredibly popular for use in invoicing business to business over email, for example.
It isn't "moving forward" A LOT of so called "upgrades" aren't upgrades at all and if anything are steps back in the wrong direction. We peaked hardware wise back in 2005 and the assertion that it isn't the case shows how much you've willingly given up and even worse FORGOTTEN about the old world
@@victorkreig6089We didn't peak in 2005, what the hell are you talking about. By that definition, Germany peaked in technology because they still stick to literal mail services for a lot of things according to you, yeah it works but is it a superior technology?
@@victorkreig6089 that's so incredibly wrong. USB-C, good displays (that can be viewed from more than one angle and also when the sun is shining), widespread use of SSDs, just overall responsiveness and speed of machines. Should I go on?
god the faxes. I had to update our bank routing info with a Japanese customer this year (2023). They demanded I fax the info to them, even though I've only ever communicated with the same person in Japan for 10 years via e-mail. Anyways after lots of screwing around, we still have a fax machine too, I just said screw it. I threw in a signed copy of the updated info into their next shipment box and mailed it to them.
@@Jehty_ please do I want to see how far you can push your head up your own backside before you run out of redundant things to say. The fact you're even attempting to refute what I said shows you don't understand my point at all
I work for a Japanese company and use one of these bad boys every day! It was feeling ridiculous to use due to the design at first, but it actually works great with incredible battery life and way less bugs and crashes than the desktop PC I use at the same company. It can also handle a fair bit of tossing around
The swapability really is a treasure these days, I remember some of the relatively recent Thinkpad P-series models having a covered compartment in the bottom panel that allows you to replace RAM sticks without unscrewing the whole bottom, pretty cool. Easily replaceable keyboards and screen panels as well.
I miss Panasonic electronics here in the states. They pulled out of a lot of markets here, like TV's. So hard to find their stuff and my family has been really brand loyal to them for years. My family still has a Panasonic Microwave and have used them for a VERY long time, and the last a very long time too. I miss seeing their name everywhere.
Framework uses matte screen as default on their news PCs. I concider that a big plus. Not everyone like glossy screens. I would even love if all smartphones came with a matte screen as an option.
@@az8560 glossy screens let colors shine more, hence why most modern TVs and all Smartphones use them. But for Laptops I agree that glossy screens are absolutely stupid since you pretty much always look on the screen from above and have it at an upwards angle that's perfect to reflect the lights from the ceiling into your face.
My father uses older of this laptop series for over a decade. Its toughness is matchless. And also, He brings it anywhere; a old factory of his customers, a device in a forest, a conference room of the government offices. So it needs many ports and very light.
I was worried people would say "Japan is outdated" again, but I'm glad to share the pleasure of having so many IOs and not needing to carry around adapters.
To be fair though, Japan IS outdated. Hell, even their population is outdated XD. Yes IO is great, but frankly who the hell still needs an optical disc drive. usb sticks are smaller and have much more capacity.. or better yet, if we're talking business environments, why isn't all your stuff on the network?! There's no valid reason to require optical discs in a business environment unless your business has shit IT infrastructure. Also, I can't take a country seriously that believes Faxing stuff is still an acceptable thing to do.
@@oys9420 FAX? i think they do, they aren't that bad anyway. (this is probably because we still use effton of analog papers to do... things which i think it could be just pdf and stuff, so fax kinda makes sense for our culture) floppies? most pc won't read it in first place. if there's still places that uses it, they are probably running windows 98 as well... and last "old" pc i saw was a windows xp machine only connected to local network in clinic.
Having worked in Japan this class of laptop is extremely common and also very much needed. VGA is a lifesaver for some of the antiquated projectors they have. That being said this thing sells specifically to Japan’s strange semi-analog business world.
This looks like a network technician's dream, having a lot of ports they can use for their work, and be able to used in a cramped space, standing next to the network rack, occasionally holding the laptop on one hand and typing and using the interface with the other hand and not having to deal with all those dongles.
To this day every PC I build must have an optical drive, and therefore every case I get must have the ability to install one. To me it’s a staple of the PC. My current build I finally got a BluRay drive and then realized just how much DRM bullshittery has gone into making it not worth it at all. At least I can rip the discs.
@@TH3C001Even with DRM I've "owned" movies that aren't on Amazon anymore and it has happened with steam games too. If I want a movie bad enough to pay for it but not bad enough to risk getting a low quality version I'll buy the blu ray. Not to mention I still live somewhere the internet goes out.
That laptop that combines the ports and technology of today and 20 years ago will sell very well in Mexico, Latinamerican countries and Africa. That is because in many companies, universities and schools, we still use proyectors with only VGA ports, even CDs and DVDs.
@@죽은_시민의_사회 A sheet of aluminium foil is more fragile than a 2 ton slab of solid aluminium. _I don't know what point you were trying to make, but you made it poorly._
the thickness sells it to me, i cannot trust the laptop designs that are ultra slim, simply due to how cramped it will be for the cooling system to be quite effective at the specs the hardware is capable of, think of it as like putting a 27 litre Merlin engine on a Honda S660. personally, i don't get why laptops need to be so thin.
Aaaaaaaand, it's discontinued in it's home market. It's like capitalism was organized around the enshittification of products and services that find an audience.
@@wyw876 Eh, you still get everything except the optical drive (which to be fair, actually takes up quite a lot of space) on the SR series, which is the de facto successor of this model.
I bought one of these models after watching this months ago. Been using it for maybe 5 months and it's honestly one of the best laptops I ever had. I don't do much other than browsing and doing MS office stuff so it's perfect for me. I have a 7th gen i5 model, it's more than powerful enough to have a bunch of browser tabs active and not lag, it actually feels faster than the 10th gen i3 laptop that I had previously. It's so damn light and small, i can fit it in the same bag that barely fits my 10 inch android tablet and i don't feel like I'm carrying much. The battery life is godlike so I rarely bring the charger with me outside. I definitely had trouble with the small touchpad and keyboard but I have gotten used to it. For the price I got it (about 170 USD), it's stellar. If your use case is just like mine I can't recommend it enough. I hope they keep updating this model.
This is the same idea behind the Lenovo Thinkpads. The basic design did not change until very recently. Everything just works. Parts last a long time and if you need to upgrade, the design makes all parts easily accessible compared to those thin laptops where everything is soldered to the board.
They still make the T14/T15 aimed at government buyers. It's hard to find it even on their government/education site, but it still soldiers on largely unchanged. They sell an enormous number as well every year, so used models are quite inexpensive.
And pretty much everyone agrees that the Lenovo "innovations" are almost all for the worse. My x240 is still up and running in highly modified form as a Hackintosh, but the idiotic decisions Lenovo made (whitelists, can't swap certain components without throwing the machine into an unfixable TPM locked state, etc.) make it much less useful and repair-hostile.
@@MistahMatzah That is true. We had no end of issues with their touchscreen models, their Yogas and Carbons and so on. The older ones were the exception, though. A little fiddling, but easy to bulk image and swap SSDs and memory around. It really is the T14/T15 that is the archaic holdout. Though, IMO, just get a used 580/590 as those were even simpler and built like a brick. You can get used ones for next to nothing as well.
I do not mind my Lenovo t580 looks like the old versions. But why are teething issues not fixed? The outside of the screen is still a weird plastic which is uncleanable. My moist fingers make the sides really dirty. Also the hinges are not tight enough. So my screen regularly falls to a side.
Good to see they havent changed the Bazillion screws to remove the back. I just repaired a Panasonic LT that had 20 or so to remove the back, just to swap a bloody drive out. And they were different sized screws. Love you Panasonic!
Can confirm, Let's Note keyboard is on mushy side. I've heard it's a design choice to minimize typing noise for press conferences and important meetings. At least they don't do 4GB onboard RAM anymore to prioritize battery(power draw of DDR RAM is proportionate to capacity rather than module count)
Actually the circular trackpad makes a lot of sense. Looking down at my touchpad I can clearly see the smudge of where I use it is a circular. I even setup fancy edge touch settings as shortcuts but never use it
Also less accidental palm touches. Most mordern trackpads have palm detection built in, but it usually only prevents accidental clicks/movement. Multi touch and gestures still behave weird or don't work when this happens.
CD/DVD will be the vinyl vintage thing one day (if not already starting to be) and it seems convenient to have something with modern specs capable of playing them
that's quite the machine. today's specs cramped in on a 20 year old form factor. My current HP laptop has the same exact specs minus the circular touchpad, removable battery, VGA, fingerprint scanner, DVD drive. Japan really overdoes their stuff, they take things seriously when they're to make something for a specific market
Love the trackpad, such a clever design. Small trackpads with physical buttons will always be infinitely more usable than a big slab of glass that uses unreliable software to work around its design flaw of being too big.
Recently picked up a laptop off the sid eof the road. It was perfect despite not having a harddrive installed. Got tiny 11 on it and it runs very good for being 12 years old.
Damn i kinda really like this design actually. The aesthetic of old tech, with a lot of usability still preserved, yet running on modern computing powers. I'd actually buy it if it ever became more available!
thank you for reviewing this laptop. i've been asking LTT to review this laptop since last year because this is my first laptop i bought for myself during my study year back in 2005. the lightest laptop i had ever use. i bought the used one on the auction because the price was too expensive but very reliable.
Im a sucker for PORTS and DRIVES and a nice thick laptop so i would love a USA version of this laptop! and as i dabble in vintage tech, the DVD drive and VGA port could be of significant use to me!
Editing on this channel is getting better and better. Such a good job. Transitions were clean and interesting. Great sound work as it was standard throughout. Really enjoyed this
I kinda like this laptop. It used to be normal but now it's cool today to have many reliable ports and user-end replaceable battery. I want the US keyboard version, though (Thanks to this video, I learned they also sell the replaceable keyboard and it's fairly easy to replace)
That round trackpad hasn't changed, because (in Japan) the users generally bring a little mouse along. So a large trackpad would become more of a nuisance, than a "feature".
To be fair, I'd love to see more round touchpads - the circle scrolling is so intuitive when you think about how a mouse wheel does it. Just make it a bit bigger, that may be necessary, but aside from that... Proven concept, keep it alive!
The circle-motion scrolling is also attainable with rectangular touchpads; for instance, if your laptop has Synaptics, you can enable ChiralMotion scrolling under the one-finger scroll. It needs initial sliding along the right or bottom edge to trigger vertical/horizontal scrolling, unlike this one where it has physicality in it.
In the past we had barebone notebooks, basically came with the case, motherboard, some had screens (some customizable) everything else was up to you, cpu, disk, expansion ports, etc. People could just buy the barebones and assemble the rest themselves. The closest I see today are the frameworks.
As someone who wasn't worried about the thin and light aspects of laptops, it has always bothered me that there aren't really any bigger options with all the ports and swappable bits for the US market... Except like, the Panasonic ToughBook, which is also insanely expensive compared to other models with the same specs
I used to deploy tons of laptops for companies and universities. Although I don't want to have it for personal use, IMO Panasonic laptops are one of the best because they are the toughest and super light.
As weird as this is, in Japan this laptop have been a huge life savior for so many sales men working in and out of office. Its light, compact, and it can do a little bit of everything you need for work involving a computer.
The VGA port makes sense since it is unbelievable how many organizations use projectors with no concept of HDMI whatsoever.
it's because it's much cheaper to equip 100s of classes with long vga cables. Long hdmi cables tend to get really expensive for some reason.
and why do they care about upgrading when you're paying your kidney anyway
The only feature that really surprised me was optical drive. That takes up a lot of space in a laptop for a feature you don't see used that much anymore.
Last time I bought a laptop with one of those was in 2010.
Also a lot of those old vga projectors are way easier to service than new ones. And they keep to repair them
@@nousername191 *looks at his old DVD collection and whimpers* Thankfully i still got a PS4 :P
@@ridakesserwan8712 i think because vga is analog and basically can be made from scrap wire.
Loved this computer. The motto of this computer's design is literally "if it worked for 20 years it works"
yeah, I wish companies to keep making these 50 years later so we can say "this is how we used to get work done in our time boys"
Agree
my dell precisin dosent have one and its a workstation@@GetOffMyPhoneGoogle
Looking at you Apple 👀 where is my 3.5mm
Reliable, this laptop has futuristic design rather than those greenwasher companies making.
much more eco-friendly than what is sold on the big market now. lol
As a helpdesk guy, I've actually had to help out a few Japanese students who had this kind of laptop. It's always interesting whenever one pops up.
It should be mentioned that Let's Note is designed with durability in mind. Indeed, it resists 100kgf. Would you know the importance of this specific value in Japan? It is, the maximum force measured on the Tokyu Denentoshi Line, known as one of the busiest rail lines in Japan.
I comment as a Japanese person
This computer is mainly used for sales when going to customer sites instead of the office.
Its armor, which looks old, is made of aluminum and is made very rigid, making it very difficult to break if dropped.
This is why users who use this machine outside rather than in the office prefer to use it.
In addition, some older hotels in Japan (few of which exist these days) do not have Wi-Fi, but instead have wired LAN in each room.
(In some cases, wired LAN is more stable than Wi-Fi, so it is preferable.)
Also, to some extent, companies in Japan contract and use computers on a lease basis instead of purchasing them. Therefore, it is very convenient to be able to replace the battery yourself.
This old-looking computer is actually a supercomputer that is quite specialized for business for Japan.
honestly that early 2000s design is oddly beautiful, i wish more computers kept that old style instead of the bland minimalism we see today
Nahh, you not japanese
Only amaerican call alumunium aluminum
@@Maung14 Bro, the spelling doesn't change that way. At most it is one extra i. AlumInum vs AlumInIum.
@@Maung14 Wrong, Japanese people spell it the American way, just like everything else spelling wise
@@Maung14it can be both, because we cut it off to アルミ ↬ alumi.
This is so useful as an on the go maintenance machine. And the port to clean the exhaust is genius. That's usually ultra tedious to dismantle a machine just to remove a layer of felt that has formed.
Indeed! More manufacturers outside Japan oughtta learn from them.
@@LloydDunamis never happening.
They would prefer to add RGB in the battery before adding a useful feature.
@@elecman748 One can dream.
I mean, for one, Framework's now around and being successful in that jumpstart to push these unthinkables.
That port to blow out the heatsink dust is the most genius thing I've ever seen and I am now angry that it wasn't considered a standard QoL thing on all laptops for decades.
I've seen this on a Fujitsu and NEC laptops from Japan. It's infuriating that none of the western models have this.
They could put a tube chamber for as soc to blow out heat & dust.
It's really important
Have you seen the new graphene fan blower via some graphene threads vibrating in a chamber?
You're supposed to buy a new unit. The Japanese still have the old German respect for quality.
Reaching that fan chute in my IBM Thinkpad X61t is a nightmare. After dismantling the whole thing, I have cut off the metal tabs to make the cover easier to remove.
I am a former Panasonic employee. The model of the laptop has not changed much from the past. Panasonic's laptops are very powerful, because the laptops are used in CNC machines where conditions are very oily and wet. Miraculously, the laptop still runs normally even though the laptop machine is full of oil and collent.Even though it's not a though book series. I've never seen a laptop with such power in any brand. 😁
Panasonic is one of my favorite companies. Pretty much everything they make is a stellar product.
Japanese quality is different bro .
@@pikachuchujelly7628 My VHS video recorders are Panasonic. Unfortunately later models changed from the reliable die cast metal drives to flimsy sheetmetal trash like all other brands, those fall apart when winding tape a few times per day and crinkle tape when the chassis warps by e.g. resting the case on uneven surfaces or worn cassette has too much tension.
Siemens and Dell also make rigid laptops
I’m a surf photographer that use Panasonic lumix, all I can say is that they are unreal, I made the switch from full frame Nikons to the gh series because I wanted a lighter set up for travel, and I’m glad I did those little cameras a so though I had one flood with a water housing, dry out and still shoot fine. Dropped em in sand fine, covered in ash fine. One of those companies that never gets the credit they deserve
I work at a Japanese company and our bosses all had these, and the first time I saw it, I seriously thought it was just some old laptop they stubbornly refuse to replace...
...until I saw them charging with USB-C cables to some Anker power brick and running windows 11 more responsibly than my own current-gen laptop.
And when we were briefly assigned in Japan, pretty much everyone had these in the office. Something we never got to see before going there since our company would supply Dell laptops for those working elsewhere outside Japan
How Interesting. I work for the European branch of a Japanese company in the IT dept., and we issue Dells for everyone - but the Japanese managing director has the notebook issued by the Japanese IT dept. and it's this model, too!
This laptop has been seen as a bit of status gear to have. It has always been more expensive than the other competitor, so it has a following along with ThinkPads and Macs. What's not stated here is that it's also known for durability compared to the other regular laptops (though not as much as toughbook by the same company that is used by many police departments abroad).
So anyways, this is a bit of a flex to have one.
Japan still has some of the coolest gadgets. I remember a laptop that had a glass touchpad and it had a screen under it that had an interactive cat follow your finger around. This was in 2011 iirc
Asus also has laptops with screens as trackpad.
@@malo6748 Yeah, but way after 2011. Just shows the interesting dynamic of how Japanese companies are innovative, yet still release new things that have “died” elsewhere
@@thisistimmywasn't there like a 4k CRT monitor in Japan a decade ago or so??
I remember this from the time I was using my old Viewsonic G220F.
this is one of japan's best strengths. they have been pivotal in terms of industrial and technological innovation, pioneering so many things we now all take for granted. though they also have their own unique culture around how they use consumer electronics that is special to them and that's cool. like there's a lot of things that get everyday use there we would think is strange over here, particularly with handheld devices
@@CodexSan iirc that was the Sony GDM-FW900, and it's available worldwide. It was released around 2002, not 2012
That scrolling thing actually seems really really useful as scrolling is one of the most annoying things on a trackpad. Especially if you are trying to select text at the same time.
You can left click in a text where you want the selection to start then scroll as much as you want. Then press and hold shift and click where you want the selection to end.
Surely there is a program or so to add "circle to scroll" into any laptop.
Don't need a round TouchPad to do that.
Reminds me of how scrolling can work on Samsung smartwatches, easily one of my most favorite features of their watches. like my watch 5 pro, just run my finger around the edge of the watch face and scroll through whatever it is I'm doing and still see the stuff on the screen at the same time
Circular scrolling has been an option in Linux for something like 15 years, but it's been hidden away a long time. Just like edge scrolling is starting to be. Turns out when everybody just copies Apple, new customers to the market don't know there's an alternative to two finger scrolling.
I'm confidant that most scrolling is done with a mouse.
Those technology is prepared for many legacy format that are still commonly used in Japan. It adds so many weight but it helps them to avoid the hassle of bringing so many extra adapters.
Let's note was always the premier domestic laptop for businessmen in Japan because of all the different ports it had and it's lightweight design. It was ungodly expensive, but made sense for business use. It also helped that other domestic competitors like NEC and Toshiba really dropped the ball in the 2000s, and it's only real competitor going into the 2010s were Thinkpads, and later, the X1 series. I used to work part-time at a Japanese company as a tech support, we did have a bunch of Let's Notes, but we eventually shifted to X1 Carbons as we no longer really needed the extra drives like the optical drives, and was much more cost effective. The current models still are great, but not many people can justify its price, even for business use. Their sister series, the Toughbooks, are still a great choice for extreme environments.
The western people need to stop on the "thin" craze and learn from them on the port availability. Dongles are dumb, admit it. Forget a ethernet dongle and you're screwed. I do wish we can choose the kind of ports on the device, that's the best. Might not need a VGA port, or do, or need a USB C port and so on. The DVD drive... Might be useful? But isn't Blu-ray catching up?
Toughbooks are awesome. I was a platoon leader as a conscript and my computer (the NCO in charge of calculating mortar trajectories and stuff) was always treating our Toughbook like shit and it never died on us in the field. Those things are built better than tanks.
Battery life was occasionally an issue, since it needs to be on all the time. The last reserve exercise I was on, our generator died and even with all the battery redundancy it caused so much extra work.
@@bluecherrysakura I agree idk where this thin obsession came from, like sure it's nice to have a light laptop but to make it so thin that it harms the actual functionality of the fucking device, such as losing ports, worse cooling (or none at all!), being easier to break, and being unable to repair it yourself, is stupid
@@bluecherrysakura physical media are disappearing from the life of an average user. Although I personally agree that overreliance on dongles is dumb, it seems like most people who buy laptops are alright with it.
@@proCaylak Lack of long lasting physical media is a crime against the human right of culture preservation. We need recordright, not copyright.
I lived in Japan for over 15 years from the early 2000s and this series was everywhere. It was also always pretty expensive. I don't think keeping the design and some of the features the same is due just to the aging society, though. It's kind of how things happen in Japan. Once there is something that works, then it's used forever and its hard to change. The government is still using floppy drives and it's not because they are scared to use USB drives or newer storage media. It's just because they've done it that way since they can remember, and it works, so they keep doing it, regardless of newer and more efficient options.
Aren’t capacities super small? Can’t imagine that being a realistic choice for many
Sounds like a healthy attitude to me tbh
You disagreed about it being because of age... but then literally gave a perfect example of why it's about age. If what worked for that generation is why they kept it, then as that generation aged then the product has to fit that generation aka it's about age.
@@mito-pb8qgNot really. In japan, once something became some sort of tradition in any kind of organization, it would almost a taboo to change it, no matter how inefficient it is
@@FriedHam In fairness it worked for Nintendo, but it also held them back in the eyes of game developers. No wonder why practically all of the best-selling games on Nintendo platforms are first-party mascot franchises.
I love it when they release modern stuff which looks like old hardware, extremely cool!
I recently bought an older Dell Precision M6700, and holy HELL, it's a nice laptop. You can even swap out the GPU in it. Yes, the GPU. The only problem with it is that it's heavy as shit. Full metal chassis with an incredibly beefy cooling solution along within it. It's a very big boi. But considering its incredible repairability, reliability, color-accurate screen, massive breadth of features, insanely good hardware and software backwards compatibility, and its (relatively) blistering performance considering its age... Worth it.
It saves me from having to gut relics and shove new tech in them
Just like 15yr old phones and pdas?
casio watches got you.
@@arnox4554 > The only problem with it is that it's heavy as shit.
3,74kg, or 8lbs 4oz - that's a proper mid 2010s 17" chonker.
This pc is sold in most universities in Japan. It seems like university co-op ties up with panasonic. Sometimes university's equipments only have old type of socket, or digital documents in the library are only available in CD or DVD, so it may help students to do their work in school.
This is a better computer for american schools. Apple doesn't connect to shit now without a dongle, and the dongles always overheat and break
A most iconic example of “don’t let innovation get in the way of productivity”. Newer features don’t always translate to better productivity, compatibility, or even usability when there are other “legacy” systems to interface with.
if innovation gets in the way of productivity, that's not innovation, that's marketing.
Totally agree. It is tested and proven reliability of a feature almost always preferred over any new, flashy feature in workplaces. Life the RJ45. Of course Wifi is great, but it is definitely slower and less stable than a connected LAN. If someone ever gets angry because of a small lag in your game over wifi, imagine how irate that same person would be with an unstable wifi when he is required to work online with a squeezing deadline.
Reminds me of the User Experience Course.
Making overpriced unserviceable trash is the opposite of innovation.
In light of recent events:
Don't let innovation get in the way of SAFETY.
I had a Dell years ago where you could just remove the optical drive and put either a floppy drive, another hard drive, or another battery in that slot. That was amazing.
Still have a Latitude E6420 that does that. Better built than any modern laptop I've seen.
I've got a Lenovo where you can remove the optical drive and put in a GPU! Coolest thing ever. IdeaPad Y510p.
Dell C510/C610 had that -- one of the most serviceable laptops I ever worked on. Panel for RAM, panel for HDD, battery bay and battery/accessory bay, which had a CD, DVD, floppy option... I miss those days when you had so many options. I hope Framework comes out with things along that line
I member. Some Dell Lattitude, some with Pentium 2's and one of mine had a Pentium 3 800Mhz with a 1024x768 14"WXGA screen
Dell Latitude D610. I had the spare battery in mine, made it last through an entire school day and the bus ride home. I recently tried to order a hard drive caddy for an experiment, but they accidentally sent another dvd drive lol.
I work for a Japanese company and I've seen these with some of the staff that have come from overseas. The previous models had a small door that opened for CD/DVD's and you slid the disc down under the keyboard rather than a tray coming out for them. At any rate, always found these interesting.
Very popular design and I thought it was neat as well
Yup, just pull the slider and the right side of palmrest pops open revealing the optical drive beneath, had a CF-SX3 with such feature, and that was a freaking thin and light 12" laptop.
I've also taken it apart for some maintenance (repaste the CPU and access the second memory slot, since only one slot is accessible through the memory cover) and they really had some clever ways to cram lots of components and features (particularly the optical drive and the door opening mechanism) in very little space.
The mechanism is actually pretty similar to a portable DVD player lol
このパソコンは工事現場やオフィス、海外など色々なところへ多く移動する人向けに作られているので頑丈さと様々なポートが搭載されることになっています
I had the older generation of this when I was a field engineer for Panasonic. I always loved it. The previous generation had an integrated handle that made it incredibly convenient.
Absolutely thrilled that you took a look at this laptop because I’m not exaggerating when I say that you see them everywhere in Japan. Office workers, students, teachers, these are usually the people using them and it took me a little while to figure out that they make modern versions of them instead of people clinging onto antiquated tech for some reason lol
@@danieloberhofer9035 it's fine for what i would do with this sort of laptop.
@@danieloberhofer9035the 11657 is a great tigerlake cpu and is still viable for thin and lights laptops. My work laptop has that chip and it's pretty snappy.
@@danieloberhofer9035 Current models right now are 13th gen, Linus just got the old one.
@@danieloberhofer9035 eh it's probably better than the i3-4130 I'm using in my desktop PC right now
It's actually bulky, but only Panasonic decided to trade off thickness for lightness. There's no other laptops around 1kg have plenty IO and long life batteries. Both are essential for business in Japan.
It's also for crushing resistance. Much of the bulk is empty space but it adds necessary compliance to prevent display and the entire laptop from getting nicked in the corners or bent in half.
I already know this is gonna be interesting after seeing some of the janky setups from Japan
Yup
I agree
By janky you mean amazing. China and Japan are not the same country.
@@EnlightenedSavageit's janky not junky
@@EnlightenedSavageJanky ≠ junky. Junky is trash. Janky is, in this context, "looks kinda hacked together, but it works so cool I guess."
I went to a trade convention in Japan and saw SO MANY OF THESE!! I was so confused like why does everyone have these old laptops? It's good to know they aren't actually old!
If it's not broken, don't fix it, upgrade it instead.
@verifeli those are brand new laptops. If you mean to upgrade the inner components, but keep the chassis the same, you are right. Otherwise you are wrong.
The Let's Note series was specifically designed for businessmen to use while traveling, particularly on the train. I still see guys on the Yamanote Line in Tokyo using these. They're extremely light and have insane battery life, although they do charge very slowly. My daily work PC is a older Let's Note CF-SZ6 that I bought for $200. I installed Arch Linux and i3wm and it runs like a dream. I still use it for presentations, documents, Zoom meetings, and so on.
Hello fellow laptop connoisseur! CF-RZ4 here, I love that little thing with Arch/Gnome
I’m happy to know Arch runs well because I intend to install it on one of these.
I liked laptops better when they actually had ports and you didn't have to manage so many dongles. Good on this model keeping up the practical design.
well, there are some still being made. I recently bought myself a GPD Win Max 2, and it's packed with ports despite being very small.
I always noticed that a lot of electronics from Japan seem almost... shifted in time in terms of aesthetic. I never knew it was due to age demographic thing though. I thought it was more of a "fads move in cycles" kind of thing.
@@olotocolothe contactless payment is not entirely true. Japan has been pushing their IC transport cards heavily as a payment method, both in transit and regular payment. Most convenient stores and restaurants can use IC cards to pay, not to mention the numerous QR based payments options available.
@@bryan.w.t Seems kinda ridiculous. Why not just use credit cards that work everywhere?
@@NavinF credit cards have never worked everywhere in Japan - so this filled a vacuum. Japan has been a cash society for ever - even though ATM's stop working on Sunday nights. But contactless payment is amazing - you can use your watch/phone to get on a train, or buy a drink from the vending machine, or buy something at the conbini. Much more convenient than credit card.
@@zoeherriot I *am* talking about contactless payments lol. In the US everyone adds their credit cards to their phone/watch and taps the terminal with the device. Also don't you still need credit cards for online purchases?
@@NavinF Yes, that's how it works in Japan too. Everyone has credit cards here, but they work a bit different. They are always paid off at the end of the month - and the limits are low. But it is not a credit card culture.
But yes, you tie your credit card to a device and use that to charge a contactless card - like Suica. You can of course use your credit card directly - but using it to charge a card like the Suica is quite useful. Suica has and advantage in that it is used as your train pass - and can also be linked to your company so they pay your train fees. But it is also used EVERYWHERE. Including vending machines.
So it would be really expensive to switch all that infrastructure over to directly using credit cards, and honestly, not as convenient.
It's just nice to have older IO with better specs. very nice
This made me instantly want a retro, silver laptop like this... There's a certain charm to them
Yea their design is reminiscent of the old Japanese drifting cars haha I love it
I like the design of early-late 2000s laptops way more than practically anything else on the market today. Each one had cool unique designs, and now pretty much all laptops are boring slabs with a logo on them, the only exception being some gaming laptops
Reminds me a bit of my Fujitsu LifeBook T4215. Sadly the keyboard is yellowed and the battery is so dead that the laptop freezes if the battery is in, and the wacom digitizer doesn't work anymore (probably a broken cable or loose connection)
I still like these rugged looking laptops though I prefer them black. So basically Thinkpads.
I hate this shift to thinner and lighter... give me THICC and 7 month battery life
この商品は、多分特定の職種・企業が標準として購入し、従業員に貸与するのでしょう。
このPCは、工場や建築現場など過酷な現場で使用するために作られていると思います。
また外交員（一定の基準を満たすPCで企業の専用ネットワークに接続する必要のある場合など）は、他のガジェットは必要なく、どの現場に赴いても、全て搭載されているPCなので仕事は1台で完結する。※古いシステムを使用する現場でも、変換ガジェットを準備する必要が無い。
昔のニュース映像か何かで、アメリカの警察で採用されていたのを見ました。
私の感想ですが、「個人の使用では」、満足できないと思います。まず高額な費用の割に最新機種が一世代前のスペック（私が調べた当時。）です。
まぁ確かに、その他のパーツは堅牢で、高級な素材で保証が充実している。※ただ保証がないと修理費用は非情に高額。
この商品の品質は高く、必要とされる人は良いと思います。またもし販売が終了すると、多くの職種で困る人が出ると思います。
でもPCを消耗品と考えれば、他の日本メーカー製のPCを自身の用途に応じたスペックで、「各メーカーの公式ショップ」で購入し、
PCの使用時は、バックアップの癖を付ける事で、価格を抑えた高機能なPCで楽しめると思いますよ。
Laptops like this are actually everywhere in Japan. I just assumed people were still using like 10 year old laptops. I had no idea they were brand new
also factor of japan is they live in smaller buildings mostly hence why laptop is more liked then say custom bigger pc with big tower etc as to save space they have.
japanese live in a bubble of their own
@@ravenspurplebeats5412 Even when it comes to gaming, there is a very strong preference of consoles and especially handhelds, over PCs. Size definitely plays a part.
@@am_pm.17not anymore though since the pandemic, PC gaming is getting increasing popular
And handheld laptops used to be pretty popular too in Japan, so it's not just consoles. The transmeta Crusoe saw great success in the 2000s.
Nowadays the market is basically dominated by GPD since Japanese manufacturers stopped making UMPCs with the advent of smartphones
We always think of Japan as being high tech but they also have a tendency to follow established processes without deviating, to a fault sometimes. Japanese businesses and especially the government have historically had an obsession with hard copy files and physical media like floppy and optical disks. I can’t imagine having to do IT there but laptops like these would probably help a lot in bridging the gap.
They still love their flip phones.
Those obsessions are there for good reason
@@BrettHoTeplol not any more. Even old people have switched to smartphones.
Honestly? Owning local backups is a good idea. You shouldn't put your trust in third parties and many failure points when you can just not. That said, stuff like sticking hard to Internet Explorer and ActiveX until forced to switch is simply dumb.
I think the government is finally softening on floppy disks (subbed to too many Japan based channels to remember which one said it), but fax still seems to be in it for the long haul😅. I guess this stuff won't change unless they crack the demographic collapse through babies or more open borders, both things they struggle heavily with 🤷🏾♂️
One thing you didn't point out is DVD renting in Japan is still a big thing and very cheap, that's why they include DVD drives.
true, one of the most unbelievable fact there
It feels like Japan is still living the 2000s and I don't mean that as a bad thing
It's kinda ridiculous how it's getting less popular in the west... given a choice between DVD rental and something worthless like Netflix... the choice is clear... DVDs are the way to go.
@@mallmann72 2000 tech thing is the most amazing thing, while today tech is improving but its limit what user does, I like my bulkies ThinkPad more than my x1 carbon
I don't know why non-Japanese people talk about Japan as if they know what they're talking about, but as a Japanese person I can tell you that DVD rental has already been unpopular in Japan for several years and is far from being a "big thing". It's just that in Japan, compared to the West, there's still a certain demand for physical CDs and DVDs that needs to be met.
I love it!! I miss DVD so much. I miss 2000s-early 2010s Laptops. Vaio was my fav, had a pink and a blue one!
These laptops are not only used by IT companies but virtually every mid to large sized company with mobile service. They have options to add 4G modems for connectivity anywhere. What Linus didn't mention was that when these companies upgrade the laptops, they sell them in bulk to second hand electronics shops here in Japan or auction websites. You can pick one up for relatively cheap, and they are everywhere. I'm currently using an Ivy bridge model with extra long life battery and 8GB of upgradeable RAM (I guess they took that away in the new ones)
Lol they are definitely all over every secondhand shop, I just mentioned this in another comment. It is honestly crazy how many of them are floating around out there!
The Let's Note was sold as a TOUGH laptop. Panasonic once advertised it that it was able to withstand 100kg of pressure in a super crowded Japanese rush hour metro while most other computers couldn't withstand 50kg of pressure. The Let's Note also has a sister brand called "TOUGHBOOK" which is basically Let's Notes buffed up to MIL-STD (U.S. Military standards) and they are used by the US Army, Japanese Army and so on... They are also known to be installed in US police cars too.
Best example of "if its not broken, don't fix it" and "don't mess with the winning formula"
I know, violating that principle is what ruins so many good products. Point in case Microsoft Windows
@@davetech1269 Windows has never been good.
It's had good features, that sometimes Microsoft steals from us ('never combine' windows 11 springs to mind), but you can't go and tell me you think windows 1.0 is better than 10 or 11, that's just plain old smoothbrain talk.
They are super durable and practical, that's why they are still popular. Japanese companies often buy them for workers since they only look for practicality. The keyboard is mushy since it has a waterproof film underneath. Little bit of splashing coffee won't break them. They are ugly and bulky but battery life is amazing.
Circular scrolling is supported in most trackpad hardware, I believe. It's usually called "Circular scrolling" or "Chiral Scrolling". There are tons of instructions on the Internet about how to enable it.
Interesting.. I've used a Di Novo edge for quite awhile so I've been used to circular scrolling but I didn't know about using it on other trackpads. Will have to look into this!
Totally right! I had an old Toshiba Satellite with a Synaptics touchpad and I could use chiral scroll activating it from the driver's settings
Those with Linux may try it right now: "synclient CircularScrolling=1"
I have been using this model when I was in Japan. And it's the most practical laptop and travel-friendly I've ever used because of its weight. As an office worker in marketing and sales, you have to go to multiple places everyday. It's easy to store inside even normal work (woman's!) tote bag and you can type in if you need to response to email inside train stations or any nearest spots. I have moved on from this laptop because my country doesn't have this kind of laptop anymore, but I would have bought buy this again plainly because of its weight and compact design.
I guess its a japanese thinkpad lol.
Thinkpads are a goated laptop. I love them to an insane degree.
@@honkhonk8009 Sadly they deteriorated in quality and reliability. Newer thinkpads are so fragile it hurts.
Also the VGA port and DVD drive is for sure for officework and presentations, the latter in case some old archive data in your office is stored in DVDs, and the former in the case where your office doesn't offer HDMI cables for the projector.
@@honkhonk8009 Original Thinkpads were designed in Japan you know
They really outcompeted ThinkPad, I think. Panasonic AC is 100% compatible with old IBM, it's the same 16V round barrel. If you knew old T and X Series ThinkPads it's really Chevy Volt vs Toyota Prius kinds of differences.
Half my life is in Japan, and I carried a Let's Note for about a decade. It was a delight in every way. Super solid and reliable. Only wish the line evolved. Japan has always offered a greater variety of notebook form factors than are available to us in the West. It's not so much about focusing on an older population, Japanese business is simply more consumer focused in general.
evolving means destroying reliability. If a design works dont effing fix it.
If they evolved to modern times theyd probably just remove a bunch of ports and build the whole thing out of glass
@@snintendog By evolving I mean things like sacrificing a wee bit of portability for a better/larger display, keyboard, that sort of thing. This could have happened without affecting reliability.
@@snintendogit's not even fixing thimgs..
It's changing a design for advertising etc...
It doesn't help the consumers at all..
One of the biggest complaints I get now is people demanding for me to change their apps back to what they bought/used for years..
To many companies fully change the gui of apps today just becsue while ignoring the customers..
That seems like kind of a strange thing to say, that the businesses have a customer focus. I've always heard that restaurants generally will not let you customize dishes (e.g., you can't ask them to leave out an ingredient).
This reminds me of the first laptop I ever had, I love it! I miss having ports, I miss the DVD drive and I miss having physical buttons on the trackpad.
The heatsink cleaning access port is legit. So many of my friend's laptops that i've "fixed" were just clogged with dust, hair, lint, etc. Also the optical drive hit me in the feels recently too. I made a new pc case, and when I was transferring over components I realized I had a drdr drive in my old case. I just couldn't throw it out. I put it in the new case because I MAY need it in the future, ignoring the fact that I havent needed it for the last decade...
My friend had a laptop that he said kept “shutting off” every 10 minutes. So I opened it up and damn near pulled a sock worth of lint out of the fan. I told him to stop setting it on his bed or floor, or at least set it on something solid and flat like a book if he wanted to set it on his bed.
Their 750g CF-RZ series is also very popular in Japan. Mostly used in academic and large companies.
Makes sense why large companies would want a laptop with all the old features, as for most companies their hardware is not very modern.
I would unironically love to bring back aesthetics from that era for tech in general just with modern tech inside. An early 2000's inspired smartphone design, these kinds of laptops, a smart TV, VR headset, headphones, gaming peripherals, everything
Early 2000s smartphone w a 3 inch screen sound terrible lmao
@@shyguy4617 Large screen, old style. Sorted.
@@shyguy4617 Its not. These new glass slabs are awful. They take up way too much space, they're hard to type on, and they're easy to break. If I wanted a big screen I'd get a tablet. The BlackBerry was the perfect smartphone. Great software suite, trackball and keyboard so you didn't have to bother with touch controls, no ads, a screen big enough for productivity, but small enough to be easily pocketable.
The keyboard does make a lot of sense because it is made for Japanese people. Typewriting in Japanese can't be done like western style typing. They do not type whole words like we do. They have to use semi automatic completion where they type some kana and select the word or sentence that they want to be written. The keyboard is made for this. Also those notebooks are everywhere in Japan. Japan is known for keeping things that do work and they don't like to make big changes on such things. So that thing does look old but is exactly what they want and need. It is not only about the old democraphic of Japan. Don't change what does work.
Most people nowadays just write in romaji and convert it though. I've almost never seen someone write in the classic way
I've been using a Panasonic Let's Note SZ for the past couple of years since importing it from Japan, and I can confidently say its one of the best laptops I have ever used. The circular trackpad and build quality are excellent. I'm actually quite tempted to go through the trouble of importing one of the new models. So happy you got a chance to look at one of these!
As someone who works in Japan I can say the optical drive makes a lot of sense. There are a few facilities I have been in that prohibit data to go in/out unless it's on optical media. I once I had to go to the convenience store and buy a DVD so I could get the data from a DUT in a test facility.
Yaaay for Panasonic! They built the 'ToughBooks' for LEA for years, and it's good to see they retained the things that people actually use on a regular basis. I could care less if it actually weighs 4 or 5 lbs. Functionality is king!😍👍
Had a ToughBook back in the day and damn that thing was built like a tank. Not even 4 years of high school and 1st 2 years of college could break it. I miss it big time
I use toughbooks on a daily basis. They're big and bulky but I've never had one stop working. They just work. You're not gaming on them and the programs we run are generally very low resource, but these things get the absolute crap beat out of them, especially the ones on the ambulances. Oh and they're absolutely horrible to type on. Don't plan on writing any essays. But the ones we use the keyboard is usually the rubber "water resistant" version , so I can't really criticize. You can always use your own BT one and the docks in the station/offices have much better keyboards for writing reports. We mostly have CF-19's and CF-31's, with a few CF-53's and G2's here and there. We have 3 CF-40s for the deputies and chief. I personally use a CF-53 for my side job and used a CF-19 before that, which continues to work despite a giant gash in the metalized screen housing. I threw a true SSD in the 19 and 53 over the ruggedized HDD and maxed out RAM and they're pretty much as fast as the more recent offerings. You can pick up a 19 or 53 for $200 to $500 on ebay. The sites offering "refurbished" ones are a complete rip off, stay away. I got my 53 for around $300 since it had no OS installed. My 19 was about $250.
*Couldn't care less
Just started watching and I have one of these labeled as a tough book. Slightly diff model and old but I love it as an emulation station and writing tool. Always wanted to try and run it over with a car to see how tough it was. Had it for like 10 years or so.
I can pick up the actual 2002 models at the pawn shops here in Taipei. Love the circular trackpad.
The circular trackpad makes so much sense, at least to me. My trackpad's wear over the few years of use has a near-perfect circular pattern to it.
Why am I having such a hard dejavu
Who would want something from 2002?
@@Ikxiwhy
@@52_Ronin why?
I remember a website that sold products directly from Akihabara that had laptops that looked exactly like this and, sure enough, this was back in 2004. At the time I thought they were neat looking, at least. That said while we think of Japan when it comes to leading technology they also hang onto stuff the longest due to an older population refusing to move forward. Faxes are still incredibly popular for use in invoicing business to business over email, for example.
It isn't "moving forward"
A LOT of so called "upgrades" aren't upgrades at all and if anything are steps back in the wrong direction. We peaked hardware wise back in 2005 and the assertion that it isn't the case shows how much you've willingly given up and even worse FORGOTTEN about the old world
@@victorkreig6089We didn't peak in 2005, what the hell are you talking about. By that definition, Germany peaked in technology because they still stick to literal mail services for a lot of things according to you, yeah it works but is it a superior technology?
@@victorkreig6089 that's so incredibly wrong.
USB-C, good displays (that can be viewed from more than one angle and also when the sun is shining), widespread use of SSDs, just overall responsiveness and speed of machines. Should I go on?
god the faxes. I had to update our bank routing info with a Japanese customer this year (2023). They demanded I fax the info to them, even though I've only ever communicated with the same person in Japan for 10 years via e-mail. Anyways after lots of screwing around, we still have a fax machine too, I just said screw it. I threw in a signed copy of the updated info into their next shipment box and mailed it to them.
@@Jehty_ please do I want to see how far you can push your head up your own backside before you run out of redundant things to say.
The fact you're even attempting to refute what I said shows you don't understand my point at all
I work for a Japanese company and use one of these bad boys every day! It was feeling ridiculous to use due to the design at first, but it actually works great with incredible battery life and way less bugs and crashes than the desktop PC I use at the same company. It can also handle a fair bit of tossing around
Japanese 90s aesthetic > current days minimalist trends.
By far not boomer
So much of the modern stuff sucks.
"New bad old good"
Nah
I thought Japan live in 2100 🤔
The swapability really is a treasure these days, I remember some of the relatively recent Thinkpad P-series models having a covered compartment in the bottom panel that allows you to replace RAM sticks without unscrewing the whole bottom, pretty cool. Easily replaceable keyboards and screen panels as well.
I miss Panasonic electronics here in the states. They pulled out of a lot of markets here, like TV's. So hard to find their stuff and my family has been really brand loyal to them for years. My family still has a Panasonic Microwave and have used them for a VERY long time, and the last a very long time too. I miss seeing their name everywhere.
They sell their batteries at Dollar Tree, but beyond that I don't see them anymore
I've got a Panasonic shaver and bicycle, I agree they make great products.
@LordVarkson I got a Panasonic turntable/tape deck combo with speakers at a yard sale for $5 and it works great
Panasonic makes some of the best OLED TVs. They are still sold here in Europe but they are quite expensive
they make EV batteries
Framework uses matte screen as default on their news PCs. I concider that a big plus. Not everyone like glossy screens. I would even love if all smartphones came with a matte screen as an option.
I used to stick matte film on my smartphone 😂 sadly it doesn't give the same clarity as having an actual matte finish screen.
I hate glossy screens. Except my phone and tv, all other screens are matte. My two laptops and my two displays connected to my desktop are matte.
Don't know who likes glossy screens, maybe some people are just too attached to the reflection of their face?
@@az8560 glossy screens let colors shine more, hence why most modern TVs and all Smartphones use them.
But for Laptops I agree that glossy screens are absolutely stupid since you pretty much always look on the screen from above and have it at an upwards angle that's perfect to reflect the lights from the ceiling into your face.
The only advantage I see in glossy screens is how they seem to help colours pop more. Otherwise out in the real world matte is where it's at.
My father uses older of this laptop series for over a decade. Its toughness is matchless.
And also, He brings it anywhere; a old factory of his customers, a device in a forest, a conference room of the government offices. So it needs many ports and very light.
I was worried people would say "Japan is outdated" again, but I'm glad to share the pleasure of having so many IOs and not needing to carry around adapters.
To be fair though, Japan IS outdated. Hell, even their population is outdated XD.
Yes IO is great, but frankly who the hell still needs an optical disc drive. usb sticks are smaller and have much more capacity.. or better yet, if we're talking business environments, why isn't all your stuff on the network?! There's no valid reason to require optical discs in a business environment unless your business has shit IT infrastructure.
Also, I can't take a country seriously that believes Faxing stuff is still an acceptable thing to do.
They still use floopy disk and FAX machine, so yeah Japan IS outdated.
Does Japan still use floppies and FAX?
@@oys9420 FAX? i think they do, they aren't that bad anyway. (this is probably because we still use effton of analog papers to do... things which i think it could be just pdf and stuff, so fax kinda makes sense for our culture)
floppies? most pc won't read it in first place. if there's still places that uses it, they are probably running windows 98 as well... and last "old" pc i saw was a windows xp machine only connected to local network in clinic.
@@justinlzy floppy ?? No.
It's crazy how fast your production is getting better!
This kind of laptop is being used by one of the Japanese professors in our lab. I was stunned when I first saw it. Thank you for making this video!
Having worked in Japan this class of laptop is extremely common and also very much needed. VGA is a lifesaver for some of the antiquated projectors they have. That being said this thing sells specifically to Japan’s strange semi-analog business world.
This looks like a network technician's dream, having a lot of ports they can use for their work, and be able to used in a cramped space, standing next to the network rack, occasionally holding the laptop on one hand and typing and using the interface with the other hand and not having to deal with all those dongles.
Optical drives are one of those things I never have when I need it or always have when I don't.
To this day every PC I build must have an optical drive, and therefore every case I get must have the ability to install one. To me it’s a staple of the PC. My current build I finally got a BluRay drive and then realized just how much DRM bullshittery has gone into making it not worth it at all. At least I can rip the discs.
@@TH3C001Even with DRM I've "owned" movies that aren't on Amazon anymore and it has happened with steam games too.
If I want a movie bad enough to pay for it but not bad enough to risk getting a low quality version I'll buy the blu ray.
Not to mention I still live somewhere the internet goes out.
That laptop that combines the ports and technology of today and 20 years ago will sell very well in Mexico, Latinamerican countries and Africa. That is because in many companies, universities and schools, we still use proyectors with only VGA ports, even CDs and DVDs.
We need more laptops like this. As far as the ports are concerned.
I don't know about you all, but I love this kind of laptop design more than any modern laptops now days. It looks solid and tough.
Probably due to the thickness of it.
@@죽은_시민의_사회 Not thickness, it's the material they use
Your opinion is awful
@@죽은_시민의_사회 A sheet of aluminium foil is more fragile than a 2 ton slab of solid aluminium.
_I don't know what point you were trying to make, but you made it poorly._
the thickness sells it to me, i cannot trust the laptop designs that are ultra slim, simply due to how cramped it will be for the cooling system to be quite effective at the specs the hardware is capable of, think of it as like putting a 27 litre Merlin engine on a Honda S660.
personally, i don't get why laptops need to be so thin.
Linus is on fire lately, and I am loving it.
You should ask framework to allow a circular trackpad like that as a modular upgrade
That would cost a lot of space, and destroy the structual integrity of the chassis
@@spiderpig1736 Or maybe a second hotswappable battery so you swap it out mid use without powering down.
Why would you ever want a smaller trackpad?
i guess video editors could be very interested in this.
@@spiderpig1736 Oh this so much. I lament the lack of supply of batteries for my P50s so much, or I'd have a second battery on me at all times
Replaceable batteries, optical drive, connectivity, good aspect ration on the screen. I already like it 😁
Aaaaaaaand, it's discontinued in it's home market. It's like capitalism was organized around the enshittification of products and services that find an audience.
@@wyw876 Eh, you still get everything except the optical drive (which to be fair, actually takes up quite a lot of space) on the SR series, which is the de facto successor of this model.
Apple solders battery in? It's a feature!
I bought one of these models after watching this months ago. Been using it for maybe 5 months and it's honestly one of the best laptops I ever had. I don't do much other than browsing and doing MS office stuff so it's perfect for me. I have a 7th gen i5 model, it's more than powerful enough to have a bunch of browser tabs active and not lag, it actually feels faster than the 10th gen i3 laptop that I had previously. It's so damn light and small, i can fit it in the same bag that barely fits my 10 inch android tablet and i don't feel like I'm carrying much. The battery life is godlike so I rarely bring the charger with me outside. I definitely had trouble with the small touchpad and keyboard but I have gotten used to it. For the price I got it (about 170 USD), it's stellar. If your use case is just like mine I can't recommend it enough. I hope they keep updating this model.
This is the same idea behind the Lenovo Thinkpads. The basic design did not change until very recently. Everything just works. Parts last a long time and if you need to upgrade, the design makes all parts easily accessible compared to those thin laptops where everything is soldered to the board.
They still make the T14/T15 aimed at government buyers. It's hard to find it even on their government/education site, but it still soldiers on largely unchanged.
They sell an enormous number as well every year, so used models are quite inexpensive.
And pretty much everyone agrees that the Lenovo "innovations" are almost all for the worse. My x240 is still up and running in highly modified form as a Hackintosh, but the idiotic decisions Lenovo made (whitelists, can't swap certain components without throwing the machine into an unfixable TPM locked state, etc.) make it much less useful and repair-hostile.
@@MistahMatzah That is true. We had no end of issues with their touchscreen models, their Yogas and Carbons and so on. The older ones were the exception, though. A little fiddling, but easy to bulk image and swap SSDs and memory around. It really is the T14/T15 that is the archaic holdout. Though, IMO, just get a used 580/590 as those were even simpler and built like a brick. You can get used ones for next to nothing as well.
I do not mind my Lenovo t580 looks like the old versions. But why are teething issues not fixed? The outside of the screen is still a weird plastic which is uncleanable. My moist fingers make the sides really dirty. Also the hinges are not tight enough. So my screen regularly falls to a side.
@@josephoberlanderthe t14/15 isn't really comparable to the T420, T440, or even the T480
I actually think the circular scroll feature on the trackpad may actually be much better in terms of ergonomics!
Good to see they havent changed the Bazillion screws to remove the back. I just repaired a Panasonic LT that had 20 or so to remove the back, just to swap a bloody drive out. And they were different sized screws. Love you Panasonic!
Can confirm, Let's Note keyboard is on mushy side. I've heard it's a design choice to minimize typing noise for press conferences and important meetings. At least they don't do 4GB onboard RAM anymore to prioritize battery(power draw of DDR RAM is proportionate to capacity rather than module count)
The access hatch to blow out the dust in the heat sync makes so much sense, why isn't it so much more common.
Actually the circular trackpad makes a lot of sense. Looking down at my touchpad I can clearly see the smudge of where I use it is a circular. I even setup fancy edge touch settings as shortcuts but never use it
Also less accidental palm touches. Most mordern trackpads have palm detection built in, but it usually only prevents accidental clicks/movement. Multi touch and gestures still behave weird or don't work when this happens.
A blend of old and new ports and drives makes sense for me even to this day. Awesome mate!
Whats with matte screen? I love it, it reduces so many light glares. Especially in well lit environment. I hope many manufacturers do it.
As a German speaker, 02:42 "A touch on the mmmmushy feeling side" made me spill my coffee 😅 I mean, phonetically, it just sounded...weird...
I absolutely love these quick Linus explains cool tech videos. It feels very back to basics and im all for it
CD/DVD will be the vinyl vintage thing one day (if not already starting to be) and it seems convenient to have something with modern specs capable of playing them
Not quite! Very important to have physical media. 😊
this is a proper laptop no giving up type a for type c and keeping everything needed
Ah yes japan. They live 100 years ahead of us with every style still in the 80s.
Some parts yes, others you're still in the 70s
@THEJapanthey just make TVs and 'ass handed to them'?
that's quite the machine.
today's specs cramped in on a 20 year old form factor.
My current HP laptop has the same exact specs
minus the circular touchpad, removable battery, VGA, fingerprint scanner, DVD drive.
Japan really overdoes their stuff, they take things seriously when they're to make something for a specific market
figerprint scanners still exsist in laptops lmao
Love the trackpad, such a clever design. Small trackpads with physical buttons will always be infinitely more usable than a big slab of glass that uses unreliable software to work around its design flaw of being too big.
Recently picked up a laptop off the sid eof the road. It was perfect despite not having a harddrive installed. Got tiny 11 on it and it runs very good for being 12 years old.
Damn i kinda really like this design actually. The aesthetic of old tech, with a lot of usability still preserved, yet running on modern computing powers. I'd actually buy it if it ever became more available!
thank you for reviewing this laptop. i've been asking LTT to review this laptop since last year because this is my first laptop i bought for myself during my study year back in 2005. the lightest laptop i had ever use. i bought the used one on the auction because the price was too expensive but very reliable.
Im a sucker for PORTS and DRIVES and a nice thick laptop so i would love a USA version of this laptop! and as i dabble in vintage tech, the DVD drive and VGA port could be of significant use to me!
Editing on this channel is getting better and better. Such a good job. Transitions were clean and interesting. Great sound work as it was standard throughout. Really enjoyed this
I kinda like this laptop. It used to be normal but now it's cool today to have many reliable ports and user-end replaceable battery. I want the US keyboard version, though (Thanks to this video, I learned they also sell the replaceable keyboard and it's fairly easy to replace)
That round trackpad hasn't changed, because (in Japan) the users generally bring a little mouse along. So a large trackpad would become more of a nuisance, than a "feature".
If I weren't so committed to the surface laptop studio's epicly folding screen for drawing, I would super want one of these
To be fair, I'd love to see more round touchpads - the circle scrolling is so intuitive when you think about how a mouse wheel does it. Just make it a bit bigger, that may be necessary, but aside from that... Proven concept, keep it alive!
The circle-motion scrolling is also attainable with rectangular touchpads; for instance, if your laptop has Synaptics, you can enable ChiralMotion scrolling under the one-finger scroll. It needs initial sliding along the right or bottom edge to trigger vertical/horizontal scrolling, unlike this one where it has physicality in it.
In the past we had barebone notebooks, basically came with the case, motherboard, some had screens (some customizable) everything else was up to you, cpu, disk, expansion ports, etc.
People could just buy the barebones and assemble the rest themselves.
The closest I see today are the frameworks.
As someone who wasn't worried about the thin and light aspects of laptops, it has always bothered me that there aren't really any bigger options with all the ports and swappable bits for the US market... Except like, the Panasonic ToughBook, which is also insanely expensive compared to other models with the same specs
I used to deploy tons of laptops for companies and universities. Although I don't want to have it for personal use, IMO Panasonic laptops are one of the best because they are the toughest and super light.
As weird as this is, in Japan this laptop have been a huge life savior for so many sales men working in and out of office. Its light, compact, and it can do a little bit of everything you need for work involving a computer.
Lies. Light? Compact? With an ODD???
😂
@@taylorshin considering the amount of discs that still exists in Japan... yeah :yaoming: half of this is me complaining