PC Expo: Tablet-sized PCs are back -- again

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By John Cox

(IDG) -- If you believe hardware vendors have their finger on the pulse of mobile computing, then the future is tablet-sized handhelds. Again.

Three vendors unveiled tablet-sized handhelds at PC Expo this week: ViewSonic, DT Research, and Fujitsu PC Corp. Tablets are flat computers about the size of a sheet of paper, and about 1.5 inches thick. Users work with a pen or stylus, sometimes a touchscreen, and sometimes an optional keyboard. Essentially, they're PCs, or PDAs, packed into a big, bright LCD display.

Numerous vendors have offered tablets over the years, some full-blown computers, others thin clients wirelessly linked to a Windows server. None of the vendors have succeeded in selling many, partly because they were costly and partly because users weren't willing to forego the keyboard and other features of a laptop.

With the success of handheld PDAs and computers, vendors are hoping that enterprise users, at leas

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ViewSonic is showing the ViewPad 100 SuperPDA and the ViewPad 1000 tablet PC. The 100 has a 206-MHz Intel StrongARM SA-1110 processor, runs Microsoft Windows CE 3.0, has a graphics controller, and contains a 800-by-600-pixel, 10-inch, color SVGA display. It includes a Type II PC Card slot and a Type II Compact Flash slot. It has 32M bytes of flash RAM, and 64M bytes of SDRAM, a flock of Windows applications and a Java Virtual Machine. All this comes in a package that's 8.4 inches by 11 inches by 0.9 inches, weighing 2.45 pounds.

The 1000 has the same screen and resolution but is somewhat larger, and heavier, at 4 pounds. Everything else is bigger, too; it has an 800-MHz Intel Celeron chip, Windows 2000 Professional as the operating system, 128M bytes of RAM (expandable to 512M bytes), and a 6G-byte hard disk. It has a built-in digital camera, an IEEE 802.11b wireless LAN adapter, and ports for a 56K bit/sec modem and an RJ-45 Ethernet connection.

Both come with optional cradles, power cords, batteries, and keyboards that use USB or wireless interfaces.

Viewsonic estimates the street price of the Super PDA will be about $1,100, more than twice what some color PalmOS PDAs cost today. It estimates the price of the Tablet PC to be $1,800.

DT Research unveiled its WebDT 380 tablet at PC Expo. The new device uses a National Semiconductor Geode GX1 processor, runs Windows CE 3.0, and comes with Internet Explorer 4.0, Windows Media Player, a Java Virtual Machine, and ICA and RDP client programs to connect to applications on Windows servers.

It comes standard with an IEEE 802.11b wireless LAN adapter. A Metricom Ricochet Wireless WAN modem, up to 128K bits/sec, is optional, as are other international WAN connections. There is one Compact Flash slot and one USB port.

The 380 tablet is 7.9 inches by 9.6 inches by 1.1 inches and weighs 2.3 pounds. It has an 8.4-inch TFT display with touchscreen, 32M bytes of flash memory and 64M bytes of SDRAM. The WebDT 380 costs $1,185.

Fujitsu's entry is the Stylistic 3500, with a 10.4-inch TFT SVGA color screen, 500-MHz Intel Celeron, 15G-byte hard drive, and memory that expands to 256M bytes. It's 11 inches by 8.5 inches by 1.1 inches and weighs 3.2 pounds. It incorporates a 56K bit/sec modem and a 10/100M bit/sec Ethernet adapter. The PC Card slot can take wireless adapters and other devices.

A small docking station supports various other connections, such as ports for USB, PC Card and so on.

Enterprises can run any of several Windows operating systems on the tablet, which also includes Microsoft Windows Pen Services and Communication Intelligence Corp.'s PenX operating system, for handwriting recognition. Pricing for the 3500 starts at $3,899.

The devices are drawing interested huddles of users at the show, and they seem to have that indefinable quality known as "cool." But coolness typically has not translated well into improved enterprise productivity or lowered operational costs.

All three vendors are addressing enterprise concerns by supporting an array of wireless connectivity options, local and wide-area. The pricing varies, and what the vendors consider "options," like the keyboard, may be deemed "essential" by enterprise users. The add-ons drive the price tags even higher.

But with full-blown, 32-bit Windows operating systems, all of these devices are true computers; they can run applications, they're programmable, and they offer something close to a laptop-sized display. The question still unanswered is, is the tablet a style that the enterprise can exploit for its mobile and wireless requirements?