The Alphasmart Dana is a new release from Alphasmart, a longtime maker of unusual small screen, very basic tablet-laptop-like devices. The Dana is Palm OS based, with full compatibility with the Palm 10,000 program software library, plus comes with special versions of Blue Nomad’s Alphaword, Palm reader and Printboy. The Dana has two SD/MMC slots, an IR port and 8 megs of internal RAM. Most unusual for a Palm device, it’s got a built-in keyboard and 560×160 gray-scale screen. The screen allows full-width spreadsheet viewing and word-processing, while any other programs not designed to take advantage of the extra width are displayed only in the center, while the “soft” grafitti area can be displayed on either side of the main screen. It weighs just 2 lbs, and has rechargable batteries and can also use 3 AA batteries or the AC adapter. Price is $400 from Palm.com, but I imagine the price for educational markets is probably significantly lower.
Hardware Beyond the Hype