Panasonic Let’s Note R9 notebook set for Japan launch

Panasonic Corporation has announced that it will launch its R-Series Let’s Note R9 or CF-R9WACDR, an ultra portable notebook powered by Intel Core i7 processors, in Japan.

Photo: Panasonic Let's Note R9 notebook

The Panasonic Let’s Note R9 notebook will be available in Japan from February 17, 2010 onwards at a price of around 180,000 yen (US$1,993), or 210,000 yen for a version with Office and Powerpoint.

The notebook has dimensions of 229 x 187 x 29.4 mm and weighs about 0.9kg. It has a 10-inch XGA TFT colour LCD screen with a resolution of 1024×768 pixels.

It’s a power packed laptop in a small, light frame with a unique heat-dissipating design that has lightweight fans developed by Panasonic. The Panasonic Let’s Note R9 notebook is supposed to be the world’s smallest PC to use the Intel Core i7 CPU.

The Panasonic Let’s Note R9 notebook comes equipped with up to 4GB of DDR3 memory and has a storage capacity that can go up to 500GB.

It is built upon the Intel QM57 Express Chipset with an included graphics card.

This notebook can run either Windows 7 Professional 32-bit or 64-bit. For an additional fee, users can also get Office Personal 2007 and Powerpoint application pre-installed.

Users can also choose from more customization options like 12 colors, a 128GB SSD and so on.

The Let’s Note R9 notebook connectivity options include two USB ports, Gigabit Ethernet, IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n wireless LAN, an SD/SDHC card slot, a Type 2 PC card slot and a Mini D-Sub 15 pin connector.

The Panasonic Let’s Note R9 can operate for up to 7.5 hours on a single battery charge.

The company had unveiled three more series other than the Let’s Note R9 series. The new notebooks, according to Panasonic, have 40 percent increased performance and incorporate Panasonic’s Fast Boot Mode. The Fast Boot Mode, as the name suggests, enables the computer to boot in just 3 seconds after the power is turned on.

Panasonic expects the sale of 300,000 units of the notebooks in a year. Notebooks are still among the top choices of PC buyers, despite a flurry of netbooks in the market.