Posted: 11:45 p.m. EST, 3/20/98

TOKYO — The introduction of Windows CE 2.0 in Japan this month has Japanese vendors contemplating a new handheld-product form that fits between conventional Windows CE devices and subnotebook PCs.

Timed with the Microsoft Corp. announcement here, three vendors — Hewlett-Packard Co., Hitachi Ltd. and NEC Corp. — disclosed Windows CE 2.0 products. Microsoft said Casio Computer Co. Ltd. and Compaq Computer Corp. will join the market, too, but the two have not revealed their product plans.

The CE products announced by the three have color supertwisted-nematic liquid-crystal displays with backlights. Hitachi and HP use Hitachi's SH-3 CPUs, at 100 MHz and 75 MHz, respectively. NEC uses a VR4111 processor.

Because of the weak yen-to-dollar ratio, the street price for the devices translates to about $800, but the impression in Japan is that the vendors intended a $1,000 product.

The Japanese vendors' products feature a large, 16.5-mm-pitch keyboard, which allows a large, 8.1-inch, half-VGA display but results in a device that's on the big side — about two-thirds the size of a standard subnotebook.

"We want to give an impact with the large keyboard," said Yoshi Takayama, senior vice president of NEC in charge of the personal-computer business. "This type will form the mainstream in the color-version Windows CE 2.0 [device]."

"After we introduced Windows CE 1.0 [products] in the States, we had a lot of requests for such features as better resolution, a color display and a larger keyboard," said Yoshihiro Kawakatsu, department manager of marketing and product planning at Hitachi I nformation Media Systems Group. "To satisfy these demands, Hitachi's Persona [the CE 2.0 entry] positions itself in between former Windows CEs and notebook PCs."

An engineer at Hitachi said that demand for comfortable keying is strong, especially in overseas markets. In a company survey, a large keyboard came at the top of the wish list.

Indeed, "Most professionals do not need all functions of Windows 95 on their business trips," said Tony Moroyan, president and chief executive officer of Metis Associates Inc., a Redwood, Calif., consultancy. "If Windows CE 2.0 [products] provide Excel, Word, PowerPoint and e-mail capabilities, they can travel with only the CE. To use CE in such a way, they need a keyboard that's easy to type in."

Hitachi plans to introduce the English-version CE 2.0 machine with a large keyboard in the United States in April. NEC has been promoting the large model as Mobile Gear in the United States since November.

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