JVC's new hand-held email device, the HC-E100 PocketMail offers a glimpse of a new generation of email appliances we'll undoubtedly be seeing in the coming year. The HC-E100 uses Pocket Science's PocketMail technology which is also being licensed to Sharp and other makers of PDAs and H/PCs.

The beauty of the HC-E100 is certainly not its catchy name! (Try saying "HC-E100" twenty times.) It's designed to send and receive email from any type of telephone (cellular, office phone, digital PBX, etc.) without the need of a computer, modem or even phone cable. It has a cute retractable acoustic coupler stored on its back that folds out and is then held against a telephone's handset. You compose your messages on the fat checkbook-sized device, dial an 800 number with the telephone, squeeze the HC-E100 against the phone's handset, and transfer your messages. It's extremely simple to operate and *reasonably* trouble-free. The monthly email service is $10. You can set up to have your regular email forwarded to your PocketMail account each time you hit the road.

I love the *idea* of the HC-E100 and can definitely see it being useful to those who don't have a computer and want email and invaluable to those who need email in situations where a laptop may not be practical. Still, the HC-E100 suffers from some real problems. It's *so* much like a PDA, you find yourself wanting to be able to take notes on it or do other activities common to such a device. No such luck. It just does email (and has an address book). You also can't cut and paste within messages which I find completely clueless. After I acquired a big queue of email, I wanted to cut and paste parts of messages from one to another to save me from having to use the funky rubber keys so much. No dice. Which brings up another problem: the keyboard is not very comfortable to use, making you keep your messages *very* succinct (hey wait, that might not be so bad). Also, if you have a lot of messages (and who doesn't these days), your hand can get very tired holding the unit against the handset during transfers. One nifty feature lets you download the message subjects first, mark the messages you want to download and then go grab the full messages. You can let all that hysterical humor email wait 'til you get back to the office.

If JVC engineers are listening, here's what I suggest for version 2.0:

• Cut 'n Paste, PLEASE!
• Add a velcro strap that can be used to attach the device to the phone for long downloads.
• Add an RJ-11 port so that you can bypass the acoustic coupler if you're in a situation where that makes more sense. For instance: the device did not work on the handset of one of our phones, a super-cheapo Taiwanese jobbie. Why couldn't we just plug the HC-E100 right into the handset cord?
• Add the ability to offload your mail to a laptop or PC. Right now, the only way to get your messages off of the HC-E100 is to re-send them to your regular account (or send them to a fax machine to make hard copies).
• At least offer a notepad for some basic note-taking.
• Modify the retractable arm on the acoustic coupler so that it can be temporarily set to (or at least marked at) a certain handset size. As it is, each time you use the device, you have to re-size the arm, even if you're using the same phone.

I think this technology could be very useful and am anxious to see future versions of the JVC device, and especially, how PocketMail will be incorporated into existing PDA/handheld technologies. Imagine a little flip up arm on the back of a PalmPilot allowing you to access your email from almost any telephone on the planet.