AlphaSmart Dana

AlphaSmart has long been producing 'smart' keyboards - full-size keyboards (minus the numeric keypad) with a small LCD screen and simple word-processing software.

If your requirements are limited to typing text, you can do so for dozens of hours from battery power. The Dana takes things a step further. It not only incorporates a larger, backlit screen, but a handheld computer with the Palm operating system too.

The Dana has just about the same desktop footprint as an issue of Computeractive. The keyboard is about 15mm thick, rising to 50mm at the back of the case to house the rechargeable battery and also to give a comfortable viewing angle for the screen.

The case is made from tough ABS plastic and since there are no moving parts, the Dana should be able to take more abuse than a notebook PC. It's also very light.

Since it uses the same operating system as Palm handheld computers, the Dana is an 'instant-on' affair and your work is automatically saved in the 8MB of memory.

All the usual Palm applications are present and you should be able to run existing third-party ones too.

The Dana's monochrome touchscreen has the same vertical resolution as most Palm-based handhelds (160 pixels) but has three and a half times the horizontal resolution (560 pixels).

The extra width is wasted on the standard Palm applications, which just occupy their usual space in the middle of the screen. The word processor, however, does use the extra width, which means you can see 11 lines of an A4-width document at any one time.

Features-wise, the word processor is quite simple but you still get a range of text-formatting options, a word count, thesaurus and spell-checker.

The keys are well-spaced and have plenty of comfortably-sprung travel, which makes typing a joy.

The 8MB of memory is a bit stingy but the efficient Palm OS means it's sufficient for thousands of documents and more storage can be added via the two SD Card slots.

Documents can also be printed straight from the Dana to suitable printers using the onboard USB and infrared ports.

Contact:
Chromasonic 020 8203 8989
www.alphasmart.com

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