Acer TravelMate C110 Although the tablet PC genre is less than a year old, Acer has already reworked its version, with largely positive results: the TravelMate C110TCi remains a great-looking, black-and-silver hybrid. On the downside, it has gained weight and size and lost its smart-card reader, and it now comes with a single battery--not the pair that accompanied the previous model, the TravelMate C102Ti. At first glance, the TravelMate C110TCi model roughly matches its predecessor, although at 1.4 by 10.1 by 8.5 inches, it's slightly bigger in all dimensions. Weighing in at 3.3 pounds, the TravelMate C110TCi is more than a pound heavier than NEC's Versa LitePad slate design, but it's smaller than Toshiba's Portégé 3505, a convertible with a larger screen. The TravelMate C110TCi's AC adapter weighs a clunky 15 ounces, making for a 4.2-pound travel weight. With a twist-and-fold-over screen, the TravelMate C110TCi quickly converts from a keyboard-based notebook to a touch-screen tablet. While the 10.4-inch screen can't compare with the 12.1-inch displays that adorn many of its competitors, it's enough for doodling away a long flight, scribbling through a meeting, and Web browsing. After a week of use, we found that the screen was more resistant to fingerprints and dust than the earlier model's, but it's just as easily overwhelmed by glare if tilted at the wrong angle. With a curved keyboard, typing takes a little practice and patience to get used to. Still, the 18.1mm keys, which have a generous 2.4mm of depth, are just big enough, and the small touchpad accurately places the cursor. (There's no pointing stick.) For such a small convertible tablet, the TravelMate C110TCi squeezes in an amazing range of big-notebook features. The jewel in the crown is Intel's 900MHz ultra-low-voltage Pentium M processor, which can run rings around the original TravelMate C102Ti's 800MHz PIII CPU. But despite the low-powered Pentium M, the TravelMate C110TCi still runs hot and provides only a little more than two hours of battery life. While the system came with 512MB of 266MHz SDRAM memory, it can hold up to a whopping 2GB of memory, which is more than enough to stand up to even the toughest applications.

A good variety of ports, most of which are protected by flexible rubber covers, live along the tablet's edges. In addition to a pair of USB 2.0 ports, the TravelMate C110TCi comes with connections for FireWire, audio, and an external monitor. You'll also find ports for infrared, Ethernet, and a 56Kbps modem, as well as a single PC Card slot. Unlike its tablet peers, software is the TravelMate C110TCi's strong suit. This tablet comes with Windows XP Tablet Edition and a helpful Notebook Manager utility, which consolidates configuration and basic settings. The tablet also includes trial versions of Norton AntiVirus 5.0 and Alias SketchBook Pro, as well as Corel's Grafigo for collaboration and FranklinCovey's TabletPlanner. Unfortunately, the TravelMate C110TCi comes in last place in battery life, with a significantly lower score than those of comparison systems. The Motion Computing M1300 comes out on top in battery life, thanks to the combination of its 11.1V, 3,600mAh battery and its 900MHz Pentium M processor. Although the TravelMate C110TCi also has a 900MHz processor, its 14.8V, 1,800mAh battery held it back. The Toshiba Portege 3505, with its 10.8V, 3,600mAh battery, also beat the TravelMate. The TravelMate C110TCi comes with a standard one-year warranty, which is a step behind the best. You'll need to pay a reasonable $142 to extend it to a full three-year policy; an extra $100 beyond that provides additional screen protection. Thankfully, you can call in with a problem on the company's toll-free, 24/7 support line for the duration of the warranty or send e-mail to a technician.