For People Who'd Rather Write Than Type

Captain Janeway of Star Trek: Voyager had one. So did Deep Space Nine's Captain Sisko. They called these electronic clipboards PADDs--Personal Access Display Devices. But we call them tablet PCs or Web tablets, and you'll see more of them very soon.

Tablet computers are not new, but until now the format was confined to specialized industries. That is changing. Tablets for consumers--both PCs and Internet appliances--are due out soon from upstart vendors such as Aqcess Technologies and from big players like Siemens.

What's so cool about these devices? You can write on them without ever having to sit down. What's not so cool? Price and weight. Internet appliances start at $450; PC tablets, at about $1300. And both remain much heavier than your average clipboard.

I looked at one new tablet, the $1799 Qbe Vivo from Aqcess Technologies. The immediate successor to a bulky, 6-pound device now known as the Qbe Original, the new Vivo has slimmed down to 4 pounds by offloading the old model's built-in Smart Card reader and CD-ROM drive. But it still sports Windows Me and Windows 2000 support; a stylus and 10.4-inch touch screen that can display content in landscape or portrait mode; and capable handwriting recognition software.

Well Connected

A 56-kbps modem, an ethernet connection, and built-in 802.11b wireless networking come with the package. An optional $299 docking station offers desktop-style access via keyboard and mouse; it doubles as a battery recharger. A camera built into the top of the bezel swivels away from the tablet so you can focus on an external subject. Microphones built into the bezel let you create e-mail messages and other documents just by speaking.

While some features weren't ready in my preproduction unit, I found that the Vivo's intuitive ease of use makes it great for armchair computing or for jotting notes on the go.

But while it's less expensive than the $3000 Qbe Original, the Vivo is still priced slightly out of this world at $1799 for a PC with a 450-MHz Celeron CPU, 64MB of RAM, and a 5GB hard drive.

If you can handle living with Windows CE--and without a hard drive--you'll get a slightly better deal (and a lighter load) with the 2-pound, $1495 Fujitsu PenCentra 200. The unit has an 8-inch color transmissive screen, 32MB of RAM (upgradable to 64MB), and 16MB of flash memory.

Other tablets are on the way. Qubit's $799 Orbit tablet is slated to appear this spring, as is Siemens' 2-pound, $1300, Windows CE-based 4600 Gigaset SIMpad. In the meantime, National Semiconductor is working on a Web tablet that will access the Internet via the Ricochet wireless service.

Tablets may appeal to mobile users who prefer using a stylus to typing. But according to IDC analyst Bryan Ma, consumers may balk at today's prices for tablets that target home users. Says Ma of the new devices: "I think of them as niche products going to gadget geeks--or Star Trek fans."

SUMMARY

Qbe Vivo Street price: $1799 Aqcess Technologies 888/818-0055 www.qbenet.com