Portable Word Processors?

paulcole asks: "I am currently an English major and short story writer, who is in the market for a word processor. My laptop is a good enough tool, but I feel that it isn't quite what I need for a portable writing tool. Namely, I want something smaller, more portable, and easier to use. Right now, I am looking at the QuickPad Pro and the AlphaSmart Dana. Any insight on either of these products, or any others out there, would be very helpful." Do these 'smaller and more portable' devices necessarily justify the trade-offs in power and flexibility that a laptop with a full fledged word processor would provide?

Comments

Charlie Strope's solution

[Lumpish Scholar]

Charlie Strope,a science fiction writer who just finished his eighth novel, and whose latest novel was reviewed recently on Slashdot, dreams about a hypothetical ideal solution ("a tablet iBook") but writes about the solution he uses:

I still own a laptop for doing laptop-y things.... But when it comes to going away for a couple of days, travelling around and making notes or working on a short story, the Dana is far more portable/usable than the laptop -- and the Treo 600 is just about good enough to use for responding to email. Between them they weigh (and, if lost, cost) half as much as the laptop, not to mention having double or more the battery life.

Re:I'd opt for the Dana

[innosent]

The only problem I see with the PDA approach is the keyboard size. If you're going to do serious writing, I would think that you would want a standard size keyboard, which puts you back in the realm of 12" notebooks. Personally, I would prefer something like an IBM Thinkpad X series, since you get extremely light weight (as low as 2.6 pounds I believe), and long battery life (up to 8 hours on main battery, probably more like 6 with heavy writing). Older models can be found cheaply on eBay, and you still have all the power of a laptop, just in a thin, lightweight package. I haven't used the 12" Powerbooks, but if you're an Apple person, that would be the obvious choice, though the battery won't last as long. IANAW, but I've done 8 hours of programming work on my old Thinkpad T23 (with an extra ultrabay battery) before, and even the T series is light enough that carrying it around is no burden.

Re:Eh....smaller laptop?

[Bastian]

Figuratively speaking, bigger is not always better. Sure the laptop is smaller and has a bigger screen. But the laptop carries a price tag up in the next order of magnitude (The cheapest 12" PowerBook costs $1070 more than the most expensive Dana) and an order of magnitude less battery life. That definitely counts as a huge loss in portability to me.

One doesn't need to be financially constrained to think that the Dana is a better choice. Especially when one already owns another laptop.