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jas writes:

Epson Announces the Perfect Business Notebook, but Good Luck Trying to Buy One in USA:

The notebook PC market is a complex one—practically every manufacturer is trying to follow Apple into the thin and light market, even as Apple quietly admitted defeat this week, discontinuing the 12" MacBook with a lone USB port and 3.5mm jack after four years. This race to make thinner laptops has impacted even Lenovo's business-focused ThinkPad line, with the 13.3" ThinkPad X390 limited to one M.2 SSD, soldered down RAM, and a battery that can only be replaced if you unscrew the case.

Naturally, this direction has upset many in the ThinkPad enthusiast community, as the brand has strayed from the user-serviceability that made it the go-to option when the brand was under IBM's stewardship. In an interview with TechRepublic,  Lenovo's vice president of global commercial portfolio and product management Jerry Paradise noted that "Our job is made up of a series of trade-offs, it's never one perfect answer," noting that professionals who often travel in airports "are a big segment of our customers... they want less weight, and they want something that slides down their bag and doesn't take a lot of space."

Epson's just-announced Endeavor NA520E delivers all of the features of classic ThinkPad systems, at a lower weight than the ThinkPad X390, and with competitive specs—adding just 2.1 mm of thickness allows for two DDR4 SO-DIMM slots, two M.2 2280 SSD slots, a 1080p display with narrow bezels, up to an Intel Core i7-8565U CPU, a wealth of ports, and durability without being a tank. But you'll have to buy it in Japan.

[...] Epson's PC business is a Japan-only, built-to-order operation, making the prospect of purchasing one a complex task. Likewise, it is only available with a Japanese keyboard—which is perfectly usable in English, though with a smaller space bar.

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