I have owned an Alphasmart Dana for about a year and a half now, and it lives in a backpack that goes with me pretty much everywhere I go. It is not as small as a clam-shell style device might be but it is lightweight, has a full size keyboard (that is a joy to type on) and is durable as hell. The battery lasts about 20 hours even after a year and a half and it will take three AA batteries in a pinch. It runs Palm 4 and has two SD/MMC slots, allowing for back-ups on the fly (with 3rd party software like CardBkup or Back-Up-Buddy) and a whole lot of additional storage (I have the complete American Heritage Collegiate Dictionary and Roget's Thesaurus on mine, as well as a bunch of other things).
At the time that I bought it, the other option from Alphasmart was the AS3000, which did not appeal to me at the time. Since then, though, they have released the Neo. It is essentially the same as the AS3000 but with the form factor of the Dana and a screen that falls somewhere between the two. It runs for 700 hours on three AA batteries. If they had these when I was buying I would likely have chosen a Neo over the Dana. In fact, my mom and I split on a Neo for my sister who is in college now. She has a laptop (a fairly nice one, too) but wouldn't take it to classes unless she absolutely had to (for the normal reasons: weight, boot time, battery life) but the Neo is light and tough and instant on.
Alphasmart has a great user forum that I lurked through for quite a while before purchasing. I still go there from time to time to see what's up.
And no, I don't get any kickbacks from the peeps at Alphasmart. I am just a fanboy, apparently.
I have an Alphasmart Dana, and it is a great tool for writing. It is lightweight (only 2 lbs), durable, and has a full size keyboard that is a joy to type on. It runs for 25 hours on a full charge, and in a pinch you can put in 3 AA batteries and it will run for another 25 hours. It runs Palm OS 4, and so is an instant on device. You can use any program that will run on Palm OS 4 with it, but not all of them will take advantage of the wide screen (although more do all of the time). It has two slots that accept SD or MMC cards, allowing for massive storage (in Palm terms) and the ability to keep backups on the go (with tools like CardBkup or Back-Up-Buddy).
Some people think that the price is too high, that you should just get a cheap old laptop for the same money, but show me a laptop (especially one old enough to cost less than $400) which runs for anywhere near 25 hours. Show me any laptop that runs half that long at any price. Not that comparing the Dana with a laptop even makes sense, it all depends what you want to do. I wanted a writing tool that I could take anywhere, that wouldn't break my back to carry around, and that I didn't have to worry that dropping my backpack once would cost me all of my work in progress and a couple thousand bucks. The Dana fits the bill perfectly. I did not need a machine that can play full color 3-d games or edit video. I have a perfectly good desktop computer for stuff like that. I have a laptop as well, through my work, that I never bother to carry around at all.
Alphasmart's Dana is a great device, really. I love mine. Given my druthers, I would give it a better display (Dana has a 16 greyscale display, which is fine but is not the strong point of the device by any stretch), but only if it did not interfere with other things that make Dana great, such as battery life, durability and weight.
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I have owned an Alphasmart Dana for about a year and a half now, and it lives in a backpack that goes with me pretty much everywhere I go. It is not as small as a clam-shell style device might be but it is lightweight, has a full size keyboard (that is a joy to type on) and is durable as hell. The battery lasts about 20 hours even after a year and a half and it will take three AA batteries in a pinch. It runs Palm 4 and has two SD/MMC slots, allowing for back-ups on the fly (with 3rd party software like CardBkup or Back-Up-Buddy) and a whole lot of additional storage (I have the complete American Heritage Collegiate Dictionary and Roget's Thesaurus on mine, as well as a bunch of other things).
At the time that I bought it, the other option from Alphasmart was the AS3000, which did not appeal to me at the time. Since then, though, they have released the Neo. It is essentially the same as the AS3000 but with the form factor of the Dana and a screen that falls somewhere between the two. It runs for 700 hours on three AA batteries. If they had these when I was buying I would likely have chosen a Neo over the Dana. In fact, my mom and I split on a Neo for my sister who is in college now. She has a laptop (a fairly nice one, too) but wouldn't take it to classes unless she absolutely had to (for the normal reasons: weight, boot time, battery life) but the Neo is light and tough and instant on.
Alphasmart has a great user forum that I lurked through for quite a while before purchasing. I still go there from time to time to see what's up.
And no, I don't get any kickbacks from the peeps at Alphasmart. I am just a fanboy, apparently.
I have an Alphasmart Dana, and it is a great tool for writing. It is lightweight (only 2 lbs), durable, and has a full size keyboard that is a joy to type on. It runs for 25 hours on a full charge, and in a pinch you can put in 3 AA batteries and it will run for another 25 hours. It runs Palm OS 4, and so is an instant on device. You can use any program that will run on Palm OS 4 with it, but not all of them will take advantage of the wide screen (although more do all of the time). It has two slots that accept SD or MMC cards, allowing for massive storage (in Palm terms) and the ability to keep backups on the go (with tools like CardBkup or Back-Up-Buddy).
Some people think that the price is too high, that you should just get a cheap old laptop for the same money, but show me a laptop (especially one old enough to cost less than $400) which runs for anywhere near 25 hours. Show me any laptop that runs half that long at any price. Not that comparing the Dana with a laptop even makes sense, it all depends what you want to do. I wanted a writing tool that I could take anywhere, that wouldn't break my back to carry around, and that I didn't have to worry that dropping my backpack once would cost me all of my work in progress and a couple thousand bucks. The Dana fits the bill perfectly. I did not need a machine that can play full color 3-d games or edit video. I have a perfectly good desktop computer for stuff like that. I have a laptop as well, through my work, that I never bother to carry around at all.
Alphasmart's Dana is a great device, really. I love mine. Given my druthers, I would give it a better display (Dana has a 16 greyscale display, which is fine but is not the strong point of the device by any stretch), but only if it did not interfere with other things that make Dana great, such as battery life, durability and weight.
Phat is a word. It was added to the dictionary sometime during the 90's.
Your vocabulary is out of date...
Care for a chocolate pretzel?