Panasonic announces SC and QR 12.4-inch business notebooks

Panasonic Japan has announced its latest pair of rugged business laptops, the rugged SC laptop and QR 2-in-1. The two will go on sale in Japan on June 20th. While pricing has not yet been announced, these laptops typically sell for $2,000 to $3,000.

Both models are equipped with a 3:2 1,920 x 1,280 LCD display (touchscreen on the QR model) and a 2.07 MP webcam for FHD video calls. The SC is powered by the latest 16-core Intel Core Ultra 7 255H and 12-core Ultra 7 225U CPUs. The QR is powered by the older 12-core Intel Core i7-1360P and 10-core Core i5-1335U CPUs. The SC can be configured with a maximum 32 GB RAM and 1 TB SSD, while the QR comes with 16 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD.

The laptops are equipped with two USB-C (Thunderbolt 4) ports, two USB-A (5 Gbps) ports, one HDMI port, one Ethernet port, and a security cable slot. The SC adds a 3.5 mm headphone jack, while the QR adds a VGA port and SD card reader.

The QR toots AI features such as automatic peeping detection of someone standing behind the user while the SC touts its Microsoft CoPilot button to conveniently activate the AI. Both include other AI-powered features, such as automatic background blurring and background noise cancellation during video meetings.

The pair have the same outer dimensions of 273.2 x 208.9 x 19.9 mm (10.8 x 8.2 x 0.8 in). The SC laptop weighs 0.919 kg (2.03 lbs.), while the QR 2-in-1 weighs 0.949 kg (2.09 lbs.). The QR trades the 12.7 hour battery of the SC for a smaller 7.6 hour battery and the ability to be used as a tablet PC. The two models are ruggedly designed for business use and are MIL-STD-810H tested to survive multiple drops from 76 cm (30 in.) to a hard surface on all sides.
 

While these models must be imported from Japan, readers living abroad can buy other Panasonic laptops such as this one from Amazon US.