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I reviewed a new product for teachers and freelancers, AlphaSmart'smobile, portable word processor, at one of my regular gigs, DemystifyingDigital.com. My laptop weighs as close to a ton as a laptop should and I tried
this portable AlphaSmart NEO to
see if, as a writer, I could benefit.
What I found was that AlphaSmart is an excellent tool for writers and
for students – high school or college level. It’s compatible with Macs
and PCs.
NEO Offers Word Processing Portability for Writers and Students
AlphaSmart NEO has an extraordinarily long battery life –
about
600 hours per three disposable AA batteries. It has features like a
built-in
calculator, "applets"
for cool classroom functions, and a relatively small
footprint.
I tucked it into my knapsack and went off to the lake shore to do some
writing.
There was a little bit of a balancing
act since
the unit feels like a small keyboard
with no heft behind it to
balance it on your knee. In other words, if
I typed fast, the thing would jiggle
all over. Jostle right to the
ground if I wasn’t careful. But I decided it
wasn’t made to be used at
the beach.
In a couple of hours I had written
about as much as I would have in the
office.
AlphaSmart NEO can’t count words,
jump to the end or beginning of a page or line. It
doesn’t format
text, insert anything or create tables. Technology is so complex
these
days it was odd for me to think in terms of plain text formatting, but I
enjoyed
the freedom of working outside the house for a while. My laptop's short battery life
and weighty equipment.
Note For Teachers
NEO would probably be an awesome gadget in a classroom setting.
We women teach, we take classes, we audit courses. NEO lets
teachers monitor
assignments within a group of students, upload
finished work to her computer for
review, add comments and send it
back. The teacher can design quizzes,
distribute them and reclaim
results. If I still taught, I'd lobby for this system
in my classroom.
My NEO has nearly a
hundred docs on it now – I have to upload them to
my computer to
finish, polish and publish them.
Writing is my business. I do a lot of
it. So the extra steps are cumbersome, but again, I like the freedom.
For
journaling, writing personal snail mail for frequent
corresponders, or for taking
notes at meetings and so forth, AlphaSmart’s portable word processor is a fair option.
