Panasonic’s Let’s Note laptops are pure Japanese business distilled into a brick

If you ever find yourself on a bullet train between, say, Tokyo and Osaka at 5.37pm on a Thursday afternoon, you’ll see a lot of dudes in suits with three things on the little fold-out table: a meticulously arranged bento box, a can of Suntory Premium Malts beer, and a Panasonic Let’s Note laptop.

Let’s Note laptops don’t look like much. Well, to be precise, they look like laptops from 2002. They have super boxy, inch-thick designs, squared-off screens, giant cooling vents, optical disc drives, VGA ports, and inexplicably circular trackpads. The line dates back to 1996, and hasn’t really changed much this millennium.

The range remains ubiquitous in Japan wherever there’s a need for portable computing, however, and Panasonic is putting a...

Continue reading…



Continue reading...