:W4, THE Fujitsu T rival

We presented the Panasonic R4 a while ago, and this time we have a look at it's bigger grother, the W4.




Just like the R4, the W4 is a Sonoma PC, which implies an Intel 915 chipset, a Pentium M processor (a 753 at 1.2Ghz in this case) and DDR2 RAM. To make it simple, the W4 is basically a R4 because it's the same hardware. The differences between the 2 machines are the screen (a 12.1" for the W4 versus a 10" on the R4) and a DVD-R/RW and RAM burner. Logically, the W4 is a ted bigger than the R4.
Just like the other Panasonic PC's, this is a fanless laptop, which means that it's very quiet.






Just like the R3 and R4, this W4 has the same type of design and casing. When it comes to shock resistance, the W4 can support a pressure of up to 100kg onto its casing.











Panasonic PC's have been designed for use in reduced spaces. All other PC's on the market have a DVD player on the side of the casing, but this W4 (just like the Y4) has a frontal DVD drive. As you can see on the pictures, the drive does not slide out of the casing because it's soldered onto the motherboard. Panasonic says that there are two advantages to this layout:

1) an increased solidity
2) an important reduction of the vibrations, the drive cannot be removed so the vibrations generated during the playback of a CD or DVD are second to none.









Another particular function of this DVD drive is not hardware but on a software level. Panasonic created a small piece of software that integrates into the taskbar and that stops the DVD drive when it's not in use, all this in a goal to conserve battery power.



The use of the PC in a restricted space is also the reason why the audio jack and headphones socket have moved to the front of the PC. The same logic applies to the Power, Wireless and DVD opening buttons.






What is mind-blowing with the Panasonic PC's is the weight... even though the machine weighs 1.28kg, your senses tell you that this a real featherweight. More amazing even is the weight when you take out the battery: the W4 weighs ONLY 900g! Imagine the day when Panasonic releases a battery that weighs only half the weight of the current battery...





Just like the R4, an SD and PCMCIA slot are available on the W4. A nice touch is the small LED on the SD slot to indicate whether data is transferred from or to the SD card in the slot.







These are the results of the PC Mark 2004 Benchmarking Tools, and what is interesting is the fact that the Panasonic R4 ASpec with twice the amount of RAM (1Gb) and a 80Gb HDD (as opposed to the W4's 40Gb) gets a 2209 score, and the W4 gets a 2230 score... judge for yourself...






Thanks to GeekStuff4U.com for allowing us to test this device.