Panasonic's Atom-based UMPC Toughbook preps for shipment

Get ready, argonauts -- Panasonic's Atom-based UMPC Toughbook is gearing up to ship out soon. Since getting really official at CeBIT in March, we haven't heard a peep from Panny in regard to a definitive ship date. According to PC World, the rugged mini tablet will be loosed "later this week," and it will of course include a touch-sensitive 5.6-inch screen, compact QWERTY keypad, a variety of ports, Intel's Atom processor and a chassis built to withstand just about anything next to getting pelted with napalm. As for fleshed out specs and global ship dates, we're told to expect those on Wednesday.

[Via: TG Daily ]
[Tag: atom, launch, panasonic, tablet, tablet pc, TabletPc, toughbook, umpc ]

Video: Willcom's D4 Vista MID previewed

Akihabara News had the chance to take the Atom-based Willcom D4 / Sharp WS016SH for a spin in Tokyo. Although they only got hands-on with a near-final, engineering prototype, the kids at Aki came away impressed. Sure, the yet-to-be-optimized hardware still struggled a bit with Vista. Nevertheless, Aki remains enthusiastic about the OneSeg device toting a sliding / tilting 5-inch, LED-backlit 1,024 x 600 touchscreen display with WiFi and Japanese W-SIM. With this, Lenovo's ideapad U8, and other Intel Atom-based MIDs on the immediate horizon, these bigger than a cellphone smaller than a laptop handhelds look to be fulfilling the ultra-portable 2006 Origami promise... finally, in the second half of 2008. Lengthy video available after the break.

[Via: Engadget ]
[Tag: atom,d4,mid,sharp,vista,willcom d4,WillcomD4,ws016sh ]