Panasonic Avionics is celebrating the first shipment of its new Astrova inflight entertainment monitors, destined for launch customer Icelandair. The 4K OLED screens will be installed on the carrier’s forthcoming new fleet of leased Airbus A321neo LR aircraft.

In a statement on LinkedIn, company vice president product & portfolio management Andrew Masson said he felt like an “extremely proud father” to see the first shipset leave Panasonic’s headquarters in Osaka, Japan.

Astrova represents “an absolute paradigm shift” in inflight entertainment and connectivity, he said. “The modular architecture gives our customers the comfort and reassurance that their system will be relevant for years to come.”

Indeed, Astrova addresses some longtime pain points for airlines, such as their need to update IFE hardware without going through the costly and time-consuming engineering certification phase, including head injury criterion (HIC) testing.

By leveraging the latest advanced central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) microprocessors, and removing them from the HIC path by repositioning them in the seat box, Panasonic has enabled the hardware to be easily swapped. USB-C ports and Bluetooth, meanwhile, have been placed in a peripheral bar, enabling an easy swap here as well, as technology advances.

Astrova will be installed from nose to tail in Icelandair’s A321neo LR twinjets, which will start arriving in the fourth quarter, and will also come equipped with Viasat’s high-capacity Ka-band inflight connectivity.

Passengers should expect 16″ Astrova monitors in business class and 13″ in economy. Panasonic said the monitors boast high dynamic range HDR 10+ as well as high fidelity multi-channel spatial audio, and up to 100W of fast charging.

Icelandair is also a customer of Panasonic’s Arc 3D integrated moving map application, and its ZeroTouch service, which will enable dynamic content and file transfer to and from Icelandair’s new A321neo LR aircraft.

According to Masson, Astrova is the firm’s best-selling system with over 40 airline programs to date. “Astrova has been foundational in helping us reinforce Panasonic Avionics’ standing as the undisputed industry leader in terms of innovation and design,” he said.

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• Panasonic tackles charging anxiety with its own USB-C for Astrova IFE
• How Panasonic Avionics designed its Astrova IFE to be future-proof
• Thales’ new QLED-based IFE system wows, needs content to match
• Safran Passenger Innovations to launch accessible IFE this year

Featured image credited to Panasonic