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Toshiba dynaPad lays claim to being the world’s thinnest 12-inch 2-in-1

It seems as if every company is trying to net themselves a world record with their latest line of hardware. Almost every laptop or tablet is the thinnest at a certain size, or the lightest, or in Microsoft’s case “the most powerful laptop in the world,” regardless of how dubious that claim may be. Toshiba is right up there with all of the other firms in using this tactic, as it is touting its new dynaPad as the world’s thinnest 12-inch two-in-one.

And Toshiba is also following the trends in having the new dynaPad bring back the stylus. There’s a large touchpad area, as well as a Wacom Active Electro-Static stylus that comes with the 2-in-1, which has all of the improved accuracy and pressure sensitivity that is becoming part and parcel of the stylus’ resurgence.

The tablet’s touchscreen will also ignore resting palms in favor of more natural hand-writing positioning, according to Hexus.

Related: The pen is mightier than the finger: The best styli for the coming school year

But enough of that. This is supposed to be a light and powerful 2-in-1 first and foremost, so how heavy is this thing? Just 569 grams, or 1.25 pounds when in tablet form. It’s only just over 2 pounds when the keyboard is attached. And even then it’s only 15mm thick too.

Just because it’s small and light though, doesn’t mean this pad isn’t powerful. It packs an Intel Atom x5-Z8300 CPU, which powers a full 1,080p display, with an anti-reflection and anti-fingerprint coating to help retain a crisp image without interference from outside sources.

The Toshiba dynaPad is now ready for pre-order in Japan for the equivalent of $1,000, but it won’t reach the shores of the EU or U.S. until sometime in early 2016. While that might feel like a missed opportunity, it may be simply to gauge interest. Japan has the highest rate of stylus users in the world, so it may be that Toshiba wants to prove this is a popular device before taking it elsewhere.

Do you find the recent resurgence of stylus tablet usage surprising?

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Jon Martindale
Jon Martindale is the Evergreen Coordinator for Computing, overseeing a team of writers addressing all the latest how to…
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