a. A cell phone, which when not being used to make calls, connects to the Net, opens Internet Explorer and lets him send email, using a single finger so he can keep up even during a car chase.

b. A sleek PDA look-alike that can play music and be used as a cell phone or to surf the Net, switching between the three modes with ease.

c. A tablet smaller than a notebook that he can write into with a pen, remove errors with a digital eraser and has state-of-art encryption to conduct online transactions with the highest security.

These three are not just Bond's toys. In about six months to a year, you'll find the Smartphone, the Pocket PC Phone edition and the tablet PC on store shelves in India. These sleek devices offer the comforts of the Internet along with the convenience of a PDA or cell phone.

The bottom line in each case is the same: Be connected anywhere, everywhere. It's the perfect marriage of the wired and the wireless. For instance, on the Smartphone you can not only make phone calls but also chat with via MSN messenger and listen to music on the Windows media player while surfing your favourite sites using the bundled Pocket Explorer. With the Pocket PC phone edition or the tablet PC life gets even cooler.

These are the products of the future. Microsoft is in the process of creating an operating system (OS) and applications specifically for them. That means you'll get almost all the functionality of your desktop on these mobile devices.

Rediff Guide to the Net brings you a detailed preview of these three products. Read on!

Tablet PC

When Spock and his team on the USS Enterprise beamed down to another planet they were constantly writing on a tablet with a small pen. In the eighties, like the tiny handheld medical scanner that Dr McCoy used, the tablet too was glossed over as yet another of the unrealistic gizmos that appeared on Star Trek.

Today the Tablet PC is probably the closet real life equivalent of Spock's writing pad.

An evolution of today's notebook PC, it does away with the keyboard, using a touch screen and digital pen to input information. So, whether in a bus queue or at a conference you can use the digital pen to scribble onto the tablet screen. These notes can be saved in your own handwriting or be converted to typed text for input into other applications. The digital pen can do things typically done with the mouse or keyboard: open applications and files, select text, display menus and choose functions like copy, paste or search. There's also has an option to plug in a keyboard.

The tablet PC comes with built in wireless connectivity, so you remain connected even on the move.

What can you run on these? Microsoft has a Windows XP Tablet PC Edition that provides the full capabilities of Windows XP Professional. So almost all standard applications like Outlook, Excel, Word and PowerPoint run on it. The difference is that instead of typing you can write manually. There are also tablet specific software like the Microsoft Journal that's just like a paper notebook and has a similar look.

Size and weight: Lighter and smaller than the high-end notebooks available today.

Who makes Tablet PCs? So far Acer, Compaq, Fujitsu Siemens, Hewlett Packard, Tatung, NEC, PAD Products, Inc. and Viewsonic. As for the processor, the first Tablet PC that Bill Gates presented at Fall Comdex 2000 used a Transmeta Crusoe 600 mhz CPU. But most manufacturers now say they will offer Tablet PCs that use Intel CPUs as well.

Pricing and availability: A tablet PC is expected to be equivalent in cost to a high-end notebook. According to Microsoft India, tablet PCs will be available here by the end of the year.

Flavours: The Tablet PC comes in two avatars - The flat tablet, where you can write directly on the screen and the convertible, where the screen turns 180 degrees to open out like a notebook PC and later folds back into the keypad.

Pocket PC Phone edition

Think of it as a hand phone with a PDA. The Pocket PC Phone edition has all the features of a high-end cell phone: caller id, speed dial, conference calling, speakerphone and personalised ring tones. What gives it the drool value is its seamless integration with the PDA… like the SMS-Inbox integration or ring tones that can be made with any WAV file.

A stereo headset makes it possible to use the PDA while you talk on the phone. And you can take notes that will be stored against the person's name in the address book.

The device handles the multimedia and phone call combination so intelligently that it automatically tones down the music when a call comes in and then starts it up again at the end of the call. It has support for multiple wide area networks (WANs), Wi-Fi and GSM/GPRS to make sure you stay connected.

What can you run on these? Most Pocket PC Phone editions have a secure digital expansion slot and can synchronise with your PC through a USB port. There are the usual PDA applications combined with a Pocket Internet Explorer, Microsoft Media Player and Reader software.

Who markets them? Fujitsu-Siemens, Hewlett Packard, X2, T-Mobile (VoiceStream), Verizon Wireless and Sprint have announced that they will market them.

Size and weight: It looks like your regular PDA but with a short stubby antenna and weighs about seven ounces.

Pricing and availability: Costs approximately $500. Microsoft is already testing its Pocket PC Phone Edition OS in India and is currently working with mobile service providers to offer the option here. It should be another six to ten months before the first prototype running on the Indian wireless network rolls out.

Smartphone

"If mobile phones were cars, this would be the luxury edition," declares Kyocera, one of the makers of Smartphones.

Smartphones look just like your regular high-end cell phones, except with a much wider LCD screen and a specialised OS that gives you much more in terms of functionality.

They can act as a Palm handheld and have tools like Address Book, Date Book, Memo Pad and to-do list. The Smartphone OS allows one-handed operation. It's optimised for voice and text communication. You can browse the Net and send mail, all with a regular Internet look and feel. It supports encrypted HTML browsers for secure online transactions and can run almost all applications compatible with a Palm OS software.

What can you run on these? Your regular Windows OS, just tweaked for the Smartphone. There's a homescreen that's programmable and fully customisable enabling quick access to relevant Internet service notifications and content.

You can run Pocket Outlook that lets you read and write email, manage contacts, calendar and tasks. The unified Inbox stores email, appointments, SMS messages and voice mail notifications in one central place. Inbox can be configured over the air to receive email from multiple sources including Outlook, IMAP or POP3/SMTP. There's ActiveSync to synchronise it with your PC. Rounding off the package is a Pocket Internet explorer, Windows Media Player and even MSN messenger.

Who makes them? Sendo Ltd, Samsung Electronics, Mitsubishi, HTC, Compal and Kyocera

Pricing and availability: A Smartphone will cost as much as a high-end cell phone and is expected to be available in India in 10-12 months. Microsoft is currently testing the phone with Indian wireless carriers.

Additional links:
What the tech magazines have to say about:

Tablet PC:
-- ZDNet
-- PCMag
-- News.com
-- Pen Computing

Pocket PC Phone edition:
-- PCWorld
-- ZDNet
-- NWFusion

Smartphone:
-- CNet Asia
-- Business2.com

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