There Is Nothing Stationary About This E-Mail Method

Want to e-mail on the go? Check out Sharp’s new SE-500, a pocket-sized organizer that lets you keep in touch via e-mail when you’re away from the office. It will be on the market in a couple of months.

In addition to being able to send and receive e-mail, you can review and record appointments and notes, keep records and expenses, and write directions either by typing them on the SE-500’s on-screen keyboard or by using a Stylus Pen. You then can review the items in large or reduced size.

The pocket device (5.9 inches by 3.5 inches by 0.7 inches and weighing only 6.5 ounces) comes complete with a built-in modem, docking station and synchronization software. It has a 240-by-159 pixel touch screen LCD and a backlight illuminated display, and runs on two AA batteries.

SE-500 users can download text from any Windows-based PC to their mobile organizers. The SE-500 also allows you to check the time in cities around the world with the unit’s home / world clock, and to compute using a calculator function.

* $299 from Sharp, (800) BE-SHARP.

Speak Easy: If you’re getting ready for a trip to Europe, consider Franklin’s electronic, credit-card-sized European Translator, a hand-held device that features 100,000 words and phrases in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian.

The languages can be accessed via separate keys, allowing travelers to instantly retrieve common conversational phrases grouped in such categories as hotels, shopping, eating and drinking, weather and health.

European Translator also includes a calculator, a metric / currency converter, airline and airport phone numbers, a spelling correction function and word games that can help tourists learn the languages.

It runs on a lithium battery that should give travelers 200 hours of use before the battery has to be replaced.

* $29.95 from Franklin, (800) 266-5626.