I have been looking at purchasing a convertable tablet PC for the functionallity.

I have found this one
Convertable Tablet
and I am wondering if there would be some way to get windows XP tablet edition on it after purchasing it.

I understand that what makes windows xp into tablet xp is the serial key, but the problem is that the company does not sell a key with the tablet. I have searched around on different sites, including Microsofts, and it seems the only way to get a key is to purchase it with a new tablet.

So is there any way to buy a tablet key from Microsoft or someother retailer?

Also is it a necessary to have tablet edition or with XP pro still provide the needed functionality?

You can get the Tablet OS with an MSDN OS subscription. This subscription costs $700 and allows you to install the Tablet OS on any WinXP compatible system for development purposes. Looking at the specs for that tablet it should work as long as you can extract all the device specific drivers for installing with the Tablet edition. This is the method I used to install the Tablet OS on a Sony U-70. I already had the MSDN subscription, though so it wasn't so expensive for me.

There is a lot of information about this on my site:

http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkonther...750/index.html

__________________
James Kendrick MVP - Tablet PC
jkOnTheRun || jkOnTheRun Forums || LockerGnome - Mobile

...using mobile devices since they weighed 30 lbs.

I forgot to answer your last question about the necessity for Tablet OS. The tablet you mentioned comes with ritePen which will provide good handwriting recognition. I would try it for a few weeks first before plunging. It may be all you need.

__________________
James Kendrick MVP - Tablet PC
jkOnTheRun || jkOnTheRun Forums || LockerGnome - Mobile

...using mobile devices since they weighed 30 lbs.