AlphaSmart Shows Palm-Based Laptop

krswan writes: "AlphaSmart, which has built proprietary 'mini-laptops' for education in the past, has released a Palm Compatible device with a full keyboard, built in rechargeable batteries, 2 USB ports, and two Secure Digital and Multimedia Card compatible slots - all for $399. It is only about 2 lbs and the screen resolution is 560X160. As a teacher, I would love 30 or so for my classroom. More details at the Dana website." It's basically still more a glorified keyboard (like the older AlphaSmart products) than a laptop, but that's not a bad thing.

Comments

hmm...

[intermodal]

nothing on the site about it's ASCIIQuake benchmarks...they must be hiding something!

get something DOS-based instead

[g4dget]

There are a bunch of manufacturers (e.g., quickpad.com) of similar devices that use an 80x86-compatible chip, run a DOS-compatible OS, and have a CF slot, for roughly the same price. There is a lot of really useful DOS-based software that knows how to deal with a keyboard and a larger screen. There is also a lot of productivity software for DOS, plenty of development environments, editors, Emacs clones, etc.

I think a DOS-based system like that makes a lot more sense than something based on PalmOS. PalmOS has trouble with dealing with larger screens, PalmOS applications don't assume a keyboard, software for PalmOS often assumes a 160x160 pixel screen, and the set of applications and tools for PalmOS pales in comparison with what is out there for DOS.

No browser, not cost-effective, screen too small

[billstewart]

You can get used laptops for similar prices, and you should be able to run Linux as an X terminal if you don't think the applications are fast enough. You can certainly get new full-sized machines, and you can get Thin Clients for about $200 plus screen. Spending that much money for a machine that doesn't run a browser, doesn't have a big enough screen to read a page of text well, can't show color pictures... doesn't seem right.