Viewsonic last week announced it would ship a Tablet PC in November. Meanwhile, this week it will ship its Airpanel 100, which the firm described as the first wireless monitor for business users. Both mobile products have 10in touch-screens and can be connected to a wireless LAN (WLAN).
Viewsonic is best known for its CRT and LCD monitors. "The Tablet PC and wireless monitor markets are a new direction for us," said Christopher Franey, European managing director at Viewsonic.
The Tablet PC V1100 is due in November, when Microsoft's Windows XP Tablet PC Edition becomes available. It has built-in WLAN capability and weighs 1.5kg. Unlike some other Tablet PCs, it lacks a keyboard and relies entirely on a pen-driven user interface. Another Tablet PC reviewed by IT Week recently, the TravelMate 100 from Acer, flips open to reveal a conventional notebook keyboard.
"The key (to the Tablet PC) is being able to use writing to capture information in applications," said Marc McConnaughey, senior vice president for Viewsonic's Advanced Technology Group. He added that this is just the first phase of the Tablet PC, and that Microsoft and its hardware partners are exploring other applications for the new format. "Its usefulness will improve in subsequent updates to the operating system," McConnaughey said.
The Tablet PC V1100 is based on an 866MHz Mobile Pentium III-M processor with up to 512MB of memory. A cradle will allow the device to use DVD media when the user is at a desk, the firm said. It is priced from £1,699.
Set to ship this week is Viewsonic's Airpanel 100, which functions as a wireless thin-client terminal. The device has a 10in TFT touch screen and can be fitted with a PC Card WLAN adapter, making it similar to Microsoft's Windows Powered Smart Displays, due to launch later this year.
"Mira (Windows Powered Smart Display) will be aimed at consumers, but we're offering the same functionality in a business product right now," said Aaron Fright, Viewsonic's European product manager for mobile and wireless devices. "The idea of wireless access to corporate applications isn't new, but being able to move seamlessly from the desktop to a mobile environment has been more of an aspiration than reality," he added.
The Airpanel 100 has a built-in Microsoft RDP 5.1 client and a Citrix ICA 6.0 client for connecting to applications running on host servers. It also includes Microsoft's Internet Explorer 5.5 browser. Because it is based on Windows CE.Net, The Airpanel will also be able to link to Web services based on Microsoft's dot-Net, Fright said. Viewsonic's Airpanel 100 costs £999.
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