Tablet PCs that offer the features of a PC with the ease of use of a pen and paper will launch on 7 November. Microsoft unveiled its XP software platform for Tablet PCs at the TechXNY technology show in New York last week, and demonstrated prototype products and the latest version of its Microsoft Reader document-display software, which runs on the devices.

Tablet PCs are similar in many ways to notebook computers, with a similar weight and the ability to connect wirelessly to the Internet. However, the devices do not require a keyboard, because users can write directly onto their screens, using a digital pen.

Tablet devices will ship with applications including Microsoft Journal, which will allow users to enter words or drawings directly into the computer by writing on the screen. The software, which has the appearance on screen of lined paper, saves the notes as image files, but they can be converted into a text file by circling the content.

Other applications include Microsoft Reader 2.5 software, which is designed to improve the experience of reading on a computer screen. Firms including Corel and Adobe have also developed applications for Tablet PCs, and demonstrated products at the TechXNY show. Voice recognition may also be an integrated feature of Tablet PCs.

One of the devices demonstrated was Fujitsu's Stylistic ST4000, which runs Microsoft's Windows XP Professional Tablet PC Edition. It weighs 3lb, is less than 1in thick and uses a low-voltage Mobile Intel Pentium III processor.

Toshiba and Motion Computing announced that they intend to launch Tablet PCs running Microsoft's operating system before the end of the year. However, similar devices in the past have not fared well. Both IBM and Sony released devices that allowed users to input words or images directly via a digital pen, but have since dropped these models from their ranges due to low demand.

Neil Laver, Windows marketing manager at Microsoft, argued that the forthcoming Tablet PCs will not suffer the same fate. "With previous releases, the handwriting recognition wasn't that great because of the [low] processing power," he said. Laver added that the Tablet PC would be particularly well-suited for note taking, annotation and collaboration on the move. "People take their laptops to work, leave them on their desks when they go to meetings, and then use them again at the end of the day. We want to allow employees to use them throughout the day," he said.

Prototype Tablet PCs, with a beta version of Microsoft's Windows XP Professional Tablet PC Edition, will be deployed to some customers during July.

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