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Winter 1999 Webzine
In this issue: Baglady Boarding Pass | Monthly Travelite Tip| Overseas Carry-On Travails | Tech Review | Web Site Review
Tech Review
The AlphaSmart 2000 keyboard by Intelligent Peripheral Devices, Inc.
As much as I like the concept of a small stylus-based PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) such as the Palm Pilot, I have not bought one because frankly, my handwriting is atrocious and I get writer's cramp from relying on typing so much. Sure, there are some keyboard-type PDAs. In fact, I am particularly fond of the way the keyboard functions on the Psion Series 5 PDA: While the keys are compressed, they are large enough to touch-type with.
If you've visited my administrative page, you know that I do my Travelite work at home on a laptop. To be honest though, it's a real pain to lug my PowerBook around everywhere, and for my road trips, I much rather prefer something simpler (not to mention sturdier) to schlep around with me. So it was a true delight when I came across a small review in Mac Addict magazine some months ago about a keyboard thingy called the AlphaSmart 2000.
The AlphaSmart looks kind of like the old Apple eMate PDAs (click here for a pop-up picture of the eMate), without a flip-up screen. It has an ergonomic shape, with a four-line passive-matrix screen on the top of what looks like a squarish keyboard. Well it appears the ergonomic design has young kids in mind. Visit their web site, and you'll see that the AlphaSmart is marketed primarily towards school teachers for use in the classroom.
The AlphaSmart is, at its foundation, a simple text writer. It doesn't even operate on a very smart word processing application. You turn it on, and type. No vertical file structure, and no disk drives. Type away to your heart's content, then hook up the AlphaSmart to your PC or Mac, and hit its Send button. All you are required to do is to have a word processing window open, and voila! You watch your window as the text flows into it.
In addition to using the AlphaSmart as a text writer, you can also plug the thing in to your computer and use it as your keyboard. Handy, huh?
Okay, so the AlphaSmart doesn't do calendars. It doesn't do spreadsheets, or databases, and it doesn't understand your SQL command syntax. However what it does, it does extremely well. And it's very sturdy. I was amazed when I visited their web site, and found a page of FAQs listing what to do if you drop the darned thing! Imagine being a budget-conscious grade school teacher, and having a child throw a temper tantrum and throw an AlphaSmart down on the ground. Well, they tell you how to fix some of the parts that might break! Wow.
The price is very affordable. In a world where your PDA runs you $300, this AlphaSmart is only measly $229, which comes with a cable for either your PC or Mac. They also provide a model that allows you to use an IR port to talk to your computer. If you thought that was a good deal, I saved the best news for last -- AlphaSmart recognizes that you might have trouble finding their product for sale at computer stores, so it lets you borrow an AlphaSmart keyboard for two weeks from the company, absolutely and totally free of charge!! All they ask is that you pay for getting the thing returned to them, but that's all! You can learn more about this incredible Loaner Program at their web site as well.
I went ahead and printed out a copy of the loaner application form they have at their web site, and faxed it in according to their instructions. It wasn't but a few days later that I was staring at this cute keyboard thing, which looked like a computer made by Fisher Price. I spent the next two weeks playing around with it, carrying around and taking meeting minutes and whatnot. The keyboard is somewhat compressed but definitely touch-typable. But most convenient is that it doesn't have an unwieldy flip-up screen that makes you look like you're playing a solo game of Battleship. So you can only see four lines of text at a time, but it's something you get used to.
It was a combination of not wanting to send this cute AlphaSmart back to the manufacturer, being so pleased they were willing to let me use it free for two weeks, and that I could basically carry this thing everywhere, that I didn't think twice to go ahead and let them charge my credit card at the end of the loaner period. I haven't regretted my purchase at all! This summer, I took it out to the Nevada desert for a week of brutal heat, sand and dust. I slipped it into a two-gallon Ziploc bag and kept the thing sealed all week. Not a speck of dust on it! Just to make sure, I phoned tech support to find out what the temperature tolerance was. The kind lady on the phone told me that I could take it down to at least freezing, and that it could get as hot as 125 degrees (f) and still be operational.
If you are lazy about handwriting for keeping journals or writing your thoughts while you travel, and you want a simple keyboard that you can lug around everywhere, I heartily recommend the AlphaSmart 2000. It weighs only two pounds and runs on 3 AA batteries for what they say is 120 to 300 hours of typical use. Those specs alone should fill most people's needs for an electronic travel journal!
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