Prime Notebook Computer Review

Panasonic ToughBook T4 is bussiness oriented notebook with 12.1″ screen, no disc drive and battery life of 9+ hours. Some people say this notebook is cool but not pretty. It’s blocky because of the tough construction. The T4 case made by magnesium alloy that is very sturdy. It also tough like the name, drop from 2.5 feet, this notebook still works well. When stuff this notebook in bag full of books there’s no effect also. Although the chassis all made by magnesuim alloy, there’s some vulnerable places on the closed notebook. The battery is encased by plastics. The T4 have no the marks bear of the keyboards on the screen because there’s a protective film on the screen and Panasonic also has placed nice thick rubber pads to hold the screen off of the rest of the chassis. Panasonic also claimed that the T4 could hold up weight about 100 kg put on the top of the T4. The lid is very thick, there is no ripple on the screen when pressed on the back. The hinges are metal and rock-solid.

The ToughBook T4 specs :

Processor : Intel Pentium M 1.2GHz
Memory : 512 RAM
Hard Drive : 40 GB
Display : 12.1″ XGA anti-glare TFT Touchscreen
Battery : Li-Ion 11.1V, 7.65mAh
Dimensions : 1.1″/2.7″ x 10.6″ x 8.3″
Weight : 3.4lbs

The Panasonic T4 comes with very clean install of Windows XP Professional. The proprietary utilities for the Toughbook’s features are all pre-installed the touchpad utility, the screen rotation utility, the economy mode utility, and a System Tray version of the WiFi on/off switch. It also included a full version CD of XP Professional.
Use the ToughBook T4 for internet research, edit documents, access e-mail, it ran flawlessly and seamlessly. The performance of this notebook not really good but enough.

The T4 comes with a non-standard keyboard which is only 83 keys in a layout. The keys size also only 90% normal size. But the key travel is very good. There is some light flex in the very corner at the top left of the keyboard, but no flex on the main typing area and the other corners. Some people also don’t like the tiny space bar. The key function is standart for notebook, like volume control and brightness control by holding Fn key and pressing the Function keys at the top of the keyboard.

The touchpad on T4 is a round touchpas type like at the iPod. Although small, it’s responsive and smooth. It takes almost three full passes from left to right on the touchpad to drag the pointer from edge-to-edge on the screen. Diagonal movement is harder too. The T4 have a touch screen, so if you don’t like to use the touchpad, you can turn off the touchpad with the utility, reverse the direction of the scrolling, and activate horizontal scrolling.

The T4 have a notoriously dim screens. There is no glossy and it is not too dim to use in a room with fluorescent lighting. The screen is not too bright but bright enough for business use. Panasonic has given the T4 a screen that bright enough. The screen comes with a pre-installed, replaceable, and plastic screen protector. There’s also the protective film is stock on the T4, because the T4 also has a touch screen.

The touch screen worked flawlessly and really useful. The included stylus fits securely in a holder on the back of the screen. The replaceable protective film make dragging the stylus across the screen feels like writing on thick paper with a wooden pencil. The T4 also comes with software program to rotate the screen. When double-click a System Tray icon in Windows, the screen rotates 90, 180, or 270 degrees. A second double-click will return the screen to the traditional position.

The ports on the T4 are DC power jack, a VGA port for an external monitor, a port marked “Ext” for the optional external port replicator, and a stack of card slots on the left. LAN port, a phone line port for the built-in modem, a lock slot, and two USB ports on the right side. And PCMCIA on top and SD on the bottom.
The T4 comes with built in Intel 2915 card network connection 802.11a/b/g which is work well. The interface is easy to use and the signal strength is quite strong.

The fan in the T4 is not working since the low-voltage processor and integrated graphics don’t put off. The only noise is from the T4 is the spin of the 40 Gig hard drive. The notebook getting warm at under the left palm, the chassis, the area around the RAM expansion slot and the HD cover. It’s not getting hot, but it could make uncomfortable.

The Panasonic T4 battery is claimed 9.5 hours of life time. In normal use it’s about 8.5 hours. When the screen brightness setting low and the wireless card off, and worked with Microsoft Word, it took 10.5 hours. The charged time is about 5 hours with notebook off and 7 hours with notebook on. The speaker on T4 is tinny and quiet.

The ToughBook T4 is not a notebook for fun. The dim screen, non standard keyboard layout with small spacebar, small touchpad, warm left palm rest, and too tight USB ports are the poor of this notebook. But the T4 still have am zing battery life, great touch screen, fanless, cool round touchpad, incredible useful function keys, and enough power and hard drive space for office applications. The T4 is an ultra-portable for who looking for a notebook to work with it, not for fun.