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MobilePro 750C runs Windows CE 2.0 and features impressive screen and keyboard
Looking for a notebook alternative for light work while you're on the road? Microsoft hopes that products based on its Windows CE operating system, which runs on several lower-cost CPUs, will become viable choices.
Vendors have offered Windows CE products for more than a year, but these products have enjoyed limited success competing against fullfunction notebooks on the high end and the 3Com Palm III and PalmPilot Professional in the personal digital assistant market on the compact end. The problem with most of the first-generation Windows CE units was that they didn't provide enough features to replace a fullfunction notebook effectively, nor were they as easy to use or as lightweight as the PalmPilot series. Manufacturers sold millions of notebooks last year and more than 1 million PalmPilots. Microsoft claimed more than 500,000 Windows CEbased units sold by the first of this year, but this number was spread among several equipment makers with diverse product offerings.
The diversity of the offerings is key, because only a few of these products are capable of running the Windows CE 2.0 operating system. The initial offerings followed Microsoft's Windows CE 1.0 specification, which required just 4 Mbytes of RAM; Windows CE 2.0 requires 16 Mbytes of RAM, and many of the earlier products can't be upgraded to that level. Only recently have Windows CE 2.0-capable devices become available.
With the release of Windows CE 2.0, the operating system has grown not only in the demand it places on the hardware, but also in the number of hardware forms that are supported. Already several Windows CE 2,0-based "handheld PCs" and PDAs have been announced or released from Philips and others. NEC's entry-the MobilePro 750Chas a strong combination of features in a 1-pound, 14-ounce package, but it comes at a price ($899) that pits it against full-function notebooks weighing more than four times as much.
The MobilePro resembles a miniature notebook in many ways, including...