Panasonic shows off ultra high resolution Windows 8 tablet

Panasonic, better known for its TVs and its cameras, has shown off a Windows 8 tablet with a 20in screen that has a resolution of 3,840x2,560 pixels also known as 4K. This is significantly higher than the 1,920x1,080 resolution of most HD TVs or the 2,048x1,536 resolution of the iPad 4 and it shows. During our brief hands-on at Panasonic's booth at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, we were suitably impressed with the detailed image quality.

However, while the unnamed 4K Windows 8 tablet is thin, it also weighs a hefty 2.4kg and has battery life of just two hours. Panasonic, which also makes the Panasonic Toughbook and ToughPad range of laptops and tablets for businesses, thinks the tablet could become popular in the workplace with colleagues clustered around the high-resolution screen to examine plans, photos and documents. Oddly, Panasonic's own European head of marketing stated that such high-resolution displays don't 'give you any benefit'.

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The 4K tablet will run Windows 8 on a 1.8GHz Intel Core i5 3427U processor, 4GB of memory and a 128GB SSD. Wifi is built-in, but the thinness of the tablet's plasticky but sturdy build means there's only room for a micro SD memory card slot and one micro USB2 port.

However, unlike the roughly similar Lenovo ThinkCentre Horizon table PC which is aimed at consumers, no pricing or release date has been confirmed by Panasonic. The Japanese company may be gauging public reaction before actually releasing the 4K tablet – given this apparent level of conservatism, as well as marketing confusion over the benefits of high resolution screens, we'll be surprised if it ever sees the light of day.