The scoop: Palm TX handheld, by Palm, about $300

What it is: The Palm TX combines the best features of a business-oriented handheld (organizer, document viewer, Web and e-mail) with the best features of a consumer handheld device (photo viewer, music and video player). The TX includes a high-resolution screen (320 by 480 pixels), integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless connectivity, and a 312-MHz processor.

The system includes 128M bytes of RAM (about 100M bytes available for user applications and data), and it has a Secure Digital I/O expansion card slot that works with Secure Digital and MultiMedia Cards for additional data storage (it supports cards up to 2G bytes in capacity), memory or other applications.

Why it's cool: I like this model because it merges the best of both worlds into one device. Treo converged devices are nice if you want a cell phone and PDA, but those come with a higher price tag and a monthly service fee. The addition of embedded Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on this device provides some network connectivity for Web browsing and e-mail access, so you can get your e-mail without investing in a Treo or other device. Even Wi-Fi Protected Access security with the preshared key option is supported, so users can connect to their secured wireless networks. Kudos to Palm for thinking that some wireless networks are actually secured instead of wide open.

Some caveats: There's no embedded digital camera - but like those who will have a separate cell phone, users of the TX will likely have a different digital camera - they're more concerned with having integrated Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

Grade:   (out of five)

The scoop: Gateway Convertible Notebook (CX200x ), about $1,400, by Gateway

What it is: The Gateway Convertible Notebook is a study in contrasts. It has a 14-inch widescreen display, one of the first tablets we've seen with that. Since this is a tablet, users will want to write on the screen and carry it around. Because the larger display creates a heavier notebook, this works against the concept of a tablet.

Features we tried include the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, an Intel Pentium M processor 740 (1.73 GHz), 512M bytes of RAM, a 60G-byte hard drive and multiple-card reader (including Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, MultiMedia Card, Secure Digital, XD Picture Card, Mini Secure Digital and RS-MultiMedia Card formats). The system offers an 8x-speed DVD writer optical drive (+/-R and +/-RW, as well as CD-RW options), a Type II PC Card slot, three USB 2.0 ports, an IEEE 1394 (FireWire) port and VGA output. Connectivity options include integrated wireless (802.11b/g), Gigabit Ethernet and a V.92 modem.