Panasonic launches hybrid Windows 8 tablet for the education sector with cool extras

By Rich Edmonds
published

Panasonic has today unveiled a new "3E" hybrid Windows tablet for the education sector. The 10-inch tablet will be priced at $499 and will be offered to poorer school districts at more affordable pricing. What's neat about this product is what Panasonic has chosen to include when it comes to extended functionality, including an attachable magnifying lens to transform the 3E tablet into a microscope.

Accompanying the attachable lens is a temperature sensor, a 1366 x 768 LCD five-point touch display, 1.3-GHz Intel Atom AZ3740D quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, as well as either 32GB or 64GB of internal storage. The 3E is powered by Windows 8.1 Pro. There's also a tethered stylus for OneNote drawing and the creation of general notes. It's a rugged unit, much like the FZ-E1.

Panasonic designed the tablet for the day-to-day operation in a classroom. The tablet itself sports not only dust and water resistance, but also the ability to withstand a 70cm drop. Intel has bundled a suite of educational software and lesson plans to facilitate student learning. Overall, it's a neat tablet to learn with. The tech company is also working with Redmond on enterprise hardware.

Source: PCWorld

Rich Edmonds
Rich Edmonds
Senior Editor, PC Build

Rich Edmonds was formerly a Senior Editor of PC hardware at Windows Central, covering everything related to PC components and NAS. He's been involved in technology for more than a decade and knows a thing or two about the magic inside a PC chassis. You can follow him on Twitter at @RichEdmonds.

52 Comments
  • Dafuk did I just read?!
  • English words grouped together in sentences. Those sentences grouped together in paragraphs. Those paragraphs conveying news about Panasonic bringing to market a tablet computer for schools.
  • LMAO
  • I see what you did der !!
  • Well that escalated quickly!
  • Nice to see more schools getting windows tablets instead of iPads.
  • Yeah but too expensive ones!!!yeah I read the paragraph and they are found to cut the price for
    Poor schools but it will still be expensive!
  • The iPad is overpriced for all its shortcomings for productivity for schools.
  • you have no idea what you speak of. For every one educational app out there on Windows, there's probably at least 100 iOS apps geared towards education. 
  • That is irrelevant, an app will always be limited compared to full programs on windows.
  • Still doesn't make the ipad any less overpriced. So, you need to use 100 ios apps to make it more useful compared to just one full-featured Windows app?!! Yeah, GROSSLY overpriced then!
  • Not one student will be using more than 20 apps whether educational apps, learning apps, however you call them. Microsoft has thousands of them.
  • YOU have no idea what you speak of.  I am a tech in a large suburban school district outside Chicago.  Yes the windows app store has less educational apps than the apple store.  THis is however 8.1.  It can run all the educational programs we've used for the past few years in our labs.  That makes it MUCH more valuable than an iPad! Please remeber that apple does not own the title to the most applications, windows does - they have been written over the past 30 years and most can still run on a modern windows OS.  
    The best part about this device is we do not have to retrain teachers on a new platform or application and they can better weave those applications into daily or weekly lessonplans because they know how and when to use the systems/applications we already have!  -Plus it should work with a smart board - you have to buy a freaking apple tv and train a teacher how to use mirroring in order to use a freaking iPad....
  • This ^^^. I'm a high school teacher who's sick of being forced to Apple's ecosystem because some moronic administrators think it's the best tech for educational use.
  • How in the world could you possibly know what the price reductions are? Even without the reduction it's a great price for a windows pro tablet, especially considering how rugged it is.
  • Not a great price at all!!! 500$ !!! Man in my country it will buy 4-5 PC's!! Regardless of the specs, cuz what in the world will this tablet run!!!I mean ms paint or what?
  • Probably the same things that would run in your 4-5 PCs.
  • Yes.. I can do whatever I want on a Win8.1 PC, including emulators for, whatever.. Want to run run another OS, just VM it. Boom. Win8/8.1 is where its going
  • It can run any windows program (it's not rt)
  • Very cool. I'd like one of those and I'm more than a few decades removed from being a student.
  • Great tablet for students.
  • Cool! Nice to see stuff like this. It's more than I've seen come out of other camps...
  • Will it be made available worldwide
  • + Pakistan
  • + Jordan!!
  • This is what we need for windows 8 success! Windows tablets everywhere is gr8 !! Customers shouldn't see anything but a windows powered device like how we see android when we enter a store to get a mobile phone so those those sales guy wont recommend another tablet
  • PThis happened about a year ago when I got my Lumia 620 here in India and that store guy who sold the phone to me looked at me like am an alien ! He even insisted twice that I buy an android phone !!
  • Happened to me too. I also live in India.
  • Ultimately Windows devices are more affordable then the comparable ipad or android device. I've seen some good educational apps come to the store lately and if MS can get their "Newstand/Book/Textbook" solution together, they will become thhe obvious choice over the competition especially since most of those schools will choose Office 365 as a solution over Google Docs and iworks.  It's coming together, but they need to get the centralized subscription/book service together.
  • Spot on!!
  • Nice
    I'm jealous at today students.. In my day off school, it's only books
  • Yeah we had Apple IIE's and The Oregon Trail. They were pretty useless is hindsight.
  • Cool
  • Something “pretty amazing” is coming to Windows Phone: http://wmpoweruser.com/something-pretty-amazing-is-coming-to-windows-phone/
  • I hope it is truly amazing, but I also hope they don't take ages to release whatever it is :S
  • I'd like to know the magnification of the attachable lenses. It maybe useful in biology class.
  • Its 3d touch rocks windows phone sucks android
  • Btw does anyone have any idea as to what app that is shown in the image. Thanx
  • Not an app, its a legacy program. Look at the "close" "minimize" buttons at top right
  • It's Kno software. Kno.com
  • I wish our school got these instead of the stupid Samsung chrome books.
  • Kids are lucky these days. I dreamed having a tablet with pen to be standard on class, no more books and notebooks are only optional. I'm glad their investing on Windows tablets. I hope they make the digitizer pen as a standard, especially for school use. I bet student would love using OneNote as much I use it. :D
  • On the Surface Pro 3 ??
  • Windows tablet with pen in general. Surface Pro 3 for students is too expensive, but Surface Mini might do. I think >9" tablet might be too big for most students especially for gradeschools.
  • Nice. But I'm confused at why its so much I mean no offense its Panasonic not really a big name for tablets or computers. At least make it more affordable then drive up cost once the adoption rate is higher
  • By using the term 'cool' they just made it super lame. Good try Panasonic, now go back to making trashy tvs
  • Hmm surprises to see Panasonic being so careful for poorer people and providing good hardware and features at such a low price.
    Keep it up Panasonic.
  • Cool
  • Weirdly the specs mention a capacitive stylus, but the promo material is all "precision precision!". Error in the specs?
  • Good for highschoola and even college students.
  • Tablets are no good in schools unless you can lock them down to only allow the students to do what the teacher wants them to do. As an IT Technician in a secondary school tablets cause more of a distraction than an aide to learning as there is nothing stopping students going on to youtube or facebook or playing games. Until there are ways to restrict apps/programmes, websites and device level from a teaching PC we can't consider iPads or windows tablets as a good school resource. Where I work we currently have a tablets called Leanpads (http://www.learnpad.co) where students can only access what the teachers want them to at a time they want them to. They're still not perfect but it means students stay much more on task.
  • That's what Windows 8.1 enterprise pack was for... Do you really work in IT?