Staying ahead of the technology curve for Christmas

Got someone on your holiday list that is looking for a laptop computer? Why settle for just a laptop, you can pay a little more and get a lot more in return. <br><br>News on Six consumer reporter Rick

Wednesday, November 20th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Got someone on your holiday list that is looking for a laptop computer? Why settle for just a laptop, you can pay a little more and get a lot more in return.

News on Six consumer reporter Rick Wells shows us the next best thing, a tablet PC. Larry Travis with CompUSA, "The main advantage is to be able to hand write notes, convert them into a word text, or draw diagrams, then have it e-mailed out."

Wirelessly, think of the work you could save, not having to transcribe all those handwritten notes into the computer, or having someone else have to decipher your hand writing. "It will even learn your handwriting after a while and it also has voice recognition so you can dictate to it as well." Rick Wells, "It's getting better all the time."

Travis, "You can highlight, itâ€™s just like a note pad." Some are convertible from a standard laptop to a tablet just by rotating the screen and locking it down, some are all tablet kind of like a large PDA. You can convert that writing space to a keyboard and punch in letter-by-letter like on a PDA.

So who is the market for these? Travis says folks he calls corridor warriors. Folks who go from meeting to meeting take a lot of notes, people making sales calls. "The same individual that was buying the PDA's five years ago are buying these." PDA and desktop capabilities, and mobile like a laptop.

Getting it all is gonna cost you a little more, about $300 to $500 more than a standard laptop. He says you give up a little processor speed and it doesn't have a floppy drive or CD drive.

Just what you need to stay ahead of the technology curve.