Any glamour associated with toting around laptop computers has long since vanished. With their bulk, their attractiveness to thieves and the complications they bring to airport security checks, many travelers would just as soon leave them at home.
The rise of e-mail accounts that can be checked through any Web browser has liberated some people, too. Even when on the road for work, they use Internet cafes, copy shops with rental computers or even clients' computers to check their e-mail.
That method doesn't work for those whose on-the-road computing needs go beyond keeping their in-boxes under control or glancing at a Web site. Even the heftiest laptop becomes a welcome travel companion if the alternative is spending hours writing reports in an around-the-clock copy shop.
There may be, however, an alternative for people with broader computing needs, in the form of the laptop's little sibling, the hand-held organizer, or palmtop. The wide availability of snap-in keyboards, software that can move documents from Microsoft Office and from other software packages, and the growing variety of palmtops that offer expandable memory potentially make palmtops a laptop alternative.
It doesn't take much research to know that exchanging a fully featured laptop for a pocket-size computer and folding keyboard involves some compromises. To determine whether it was worth the effort, I tried several software packages using both of the main operating systems for hand-helds -- Palm OS and Microsoft PocketPC -- and three different palmtops with varying features and prices.
Most palmtops don't lead independent lives. While some wireless models offer Internet connections, palmtops generally rely on synchronizing with a full-size computer through a cradle to receive or forward files. The need to connect occasionally with a bigger computer limits the ability of hand-helds to replace laptops on extended trips. And, of course, the trade-off for carrying a computer slimmer than a deck of cards and smaller than a paperback novel is that it doesn't have the computing power of a full-size machine.
But even after accounting for the purchase of a snap-on keyboard that unfolds like a mechanical butterfly, or extra memory, most hand-helds cost considerably less than a typical laptop. Similarly, palmtop software is generally less expensive than programs for a personal computer.
Only the PocketPC operating system offers the ability to create or edit documents in standard formats -- at least if they are Microsoft Word and Excel files. While Microsoft doesn't throw in Word and Excel with Windows, it includes the palmtop versions of the software at no extra cost on all PocketPC hand-helds.
Microsoft Pocket Word's formatting options are so limited that the program might be better called a text editor than a word processor. But both Pocket Word and Pocket Excel worked quickly when I tried them on a Toshiba e755, a recently introduced hand-held with a suggested price of US$599. And for users of hand-helds with wireless connections to the Internet (the e755 can work on Wi-Fi networks), PocketPC can send, receive and open e-mail attachments of Word or Excel files without ever synchronizing its contents with a desktop PC through a cradle.
Because palmtops with the Palm operating system usually aren't supplied with anything like Pocket Word, many owners make do by cutting and pasting text from Memo Pad, Palm's basic text editor, into Word after the Palm contents have been synchronized with a desktop computer. Any formatting must be done on the larger computer. Still, for people who only rarely use their palmtops for writing or editing, Memo Pad is certainly economical.
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