Panasonic brings Let's Note CF-Y7 to Santa Rosa

Not wanting to feel left out of the mad Santa Rosa rush we've seen over the last few days, Panasonic has introduced its first Let's Note model to sport Intel's new chipset, the CF-Y7. This 14.1-inch upgrade features a 1,400 x 1,050 display, 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo L7300, 1GB of RAM, four-flavor WiFi, and a super multi drive, and ships with Windows Vista Business. Also on board are an 80GB hard drive, SD reader, and a claimed 7.5-hour battery, but only a PCMCIA slot instead of the preferred ExpressCard. Hitting Japan on May 18th -- and possible the US as a Toughbook in the future -- the Y7 is expected to go for around ¥275,000 ($2,227).

[Via Engadget Japanese and Impress]

[Nick @ May 10th 2007 1:20PM]

3.3 lbs

[elbow @ May 10th 2007 1:45PM]

Yea! This is the one I've been waiting for! Here's a machine-translated version of the Panasonic.jp specs page: http://tinyurl.com/yq6tr3

If you don't want to pay the dynamism.com markup (and can live without the support), the cheapest importer will be pricejapan.com, followed by conics.net (conics also charges a very reasonable amount for the hard-to-find 1GB micro-DIMM RAM modules).

Nice that Panasonic switched to a SATA drive - would be sweet to throw in the biggest 2.5" drive that'll fit (I'm assuming it'll be limited to 9.5mm high - maybe the 4200RPM 200GB Toshiba MK2035GSS for $150 @ newegg?)

Man, I hope they finally put a DVD burner instead of a combo drive in the US version of this, I don't know what knucklehead at Panasonic USA product marketing keeps thinking we don't want DVD burners over here...

[elbow @ May 10th 2007 2:27PM]

still no Bluetooth, though?? Panasonic, WTF??

At least the USA version of the Y5 has Bluetooth, but lack of a DVD burner is inexcusable, IMHO...

[keng @ May 10th 2007 3:15PM]

why no express card slot!?
I need one on this baby to make it perfect for me...

[sherlock @ May 10th 2007 3:18PM]

Something is seriously wrong with this model. I've been waiting for a new y series , but this is quite a disapointment. Only 1.5 GB of RAM maximum down from Y5 2GB. no SSD option. no expresscard. battery live slashed from 9h to 7.5h despite new CPU

[kaztm @ May 10th 2007 3:38PM]

sherlock,

Battery time decreased because of Vista. Impress had an article that said vendors must tune their BIOS to Vista which may take years to reach the level of optimization for XP.

As for 2GB Y5, wasn't that 1GB on board plus 1GB add-on? If so, I'm sure there will be 2GB Y7 in the US. Y5 was also advertised as 1.5GB max (512MB on board) for retail version such as the one in this article. Panasonic direct (Japan) has a model with 1GB on board, which I suspect was (and will be) the default for US version.

[sherlock @ May 10th 2007 5:20PM]

hmm, y5 was already delivered with Vista and Y7 has an option for XP install (i'll be buying directly in japan). I would expect that due to new CPU thay will manage to stay at the same level or extend battery life.

Any one has some coparisions of speed of 1.4 GHz Santarosa to 1.83 Core 2?

We will see maybe Pan. will have a A Spec model with 1 GB on board but it might be prohibitvely expensive

[kaztm @ May 10th 2007 3:50PM]

Just checked Panasonic direct.

Y7 with 2GB RAM (and 160GB HDD) comes out to Y349,449 ($2,960), will ship on May 24.

[Aphid @ May 11th 2007 4:38PM]

Is there no DVD burner in the NA Y5 model? The one on the Panasonic Canada site seems to have it.

http://www.panasonic.ca/english/Office/notebook/cfy5.asp

[Luc @ Jun 25th 2007 6:02AM]

Very good machine, but number one priority should now be to use a GeForce 8 series accelerated graphics card. But no compromise on weight and battery life!