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alphasmartdana What to do if you are searching for an ultra-light mobile laptop alternative and can’t afford the OLPC or Asus EeePC?

If all you want to do is play Solitaire, read e-books and type documents, the Alphasmart Dana may be an option for you. It retails for about $400, which is vastly over-priced for what you get (especially in light of the growing number of alternatives at a similar price point.) But there is a healthy secondary market on eBay. I was able to pick up one of these babies for about $75.

While I would not say it is worth anywhere near the actual retail price, I will definitely get my $75 worth, at least until the next generation of ultralights come out at cheaper prices.

Long battery life

The Dana is a computer keyboard with a built-in screen. It comes in different configurations: there is an 8MB model and a 16MB model, with WiFi and without. Both can be run on standard AA batteries, or a rechargeable battery pack which runs about 15-20 hours between charges. The Dana can be charged via USB in 8 hours, or via AC power in 4. The battery life on my unit was good. You could easily go one or two days on this without charging, unlike a standard laptop. That might be a real advantage for some users.The Dana runs on the Palm operating system, and there is a large variety of free and commercial applications available The included applications (Palm datebook/address/to do, Alphaword word processor and Palm Reader) all have been adjusted to make use of Dana’s wider ten-line screen. Palm Reader comes with a paltry two-font options though—if they don’t work for you, you’ll have to pay up for a premium version. And if you do have existing Palm software you plan to use, you are stuck with a tiny PDA-sized window unless the program has been suitably optimized.

The glories of the vertical column mode: Annotations and more

That said, the Dana has some neat features that e-book readers will especially appreciate. Firstly, the screen can be flipped into a vertical columnar mode using the ‘screen’ app. This makes for a less tiring reading experience because your eye can scan the shorter lines quickly. It also felt to me as if more text could fit that way, which meant I had to refresh the page less often. It was comfortable to hold the Dana, clipboard-style, in one hand and advance the page with the other hand using a tap to the screen or the spacebar. The column layout can additionally be flipped to accommodate right-handed or left-handed users.

In tall mode, there is also a small graffiti window at the bottom of the screen that is not generally visible in the wide-screen applications. If you are the type to make comments or annotations in your e-books, you’ll love this feature. Use the stylus to actually write your comments, old-school pen and paper-style. You can also make use of the vertical option in the word processor module, which can be handy if you are making notes and only have one writing hand free. This could be especially useful if you were filling out forms in a database. Graffiti has improved since the days of my first Palm organizer, and I found it easy to enter text accurately.

The Palm OS and other limitations

Neat features notwithstanding, the Dana does have some limitations. The Palm OS is not the most robust operating system. It can’t multi-task, the graphics handling is limited, and it can be unbelievably slow and poky at times. My paltry 30 mb worth of e-books took ages to load off a half-full memory card, and there is often a noticeable pause when you open or close a program. And while I had no problems uploading text to my Macbook via cable transfer (when plugged into a computer via USB, the Dana emulates a standard keyboard and can send text directly) I found saving to a memory card to be excessively complicated, and the hotsyc feature was sensitive and did not always take on a first go. As well, I found the screen a little shiny. It caught glares easily and reflected light if it was not positioned just so. Once I got comfortable with it and fiddled it into the right position, it was reasonably comfortable to read from and type on, but as with other things, it was needlessly fiddley and laborious

Bottom line: Great for writing and e-books, durable, lightweight, energy efficient

For what I plan to do with it, the Dana will almost certainly meet my needs. I can read e-books, do basic writing and run a few little games without having to worry about carrying around a heavy, expensive machine. The battery life is exceptional compared to a laptop. The size and weight is more than acceptable. Would I prefer the more robust Linux-based UMPC’s that are coming out these days? Yes. But for a second machine, my budget is limited. One day, there will be a second generation that really does hit the “$100 laptop” price range. I’ll wait for that. And until that time, the Dana will do the job. It isn’t worth $400, especially now that laptops are so cheap and a true $100 machine is only a matter of time. But it is easy to write on, adaptable to book reading, durable, lightweight and energy-efficient. If you are looking for an ultralight option, don’t need anything fancy, and can find one of these in the used market for a good price, snap it up. It’s well worth what I paid.

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"I’m a journalist, a teacher and an e-book fiend. I work as a French teacher at a K-3 private school. I use drama, music, puppets, props and all manner of tech in my job, and I love it. I enjoy moving between all the classes and having a relationship with each child in the school. Kids are hilarious, and I enjoy watching them grow and learn. My current device of choice for reading is my Amazon Kindle Touch, but I have owned or used devices by Sony, Kobo, Aluratek and others. I also read on my tablet devices using the Kindle app, and I enjoy synching between them, so that I’m always up to date no matter where I am or what I have with me."

5 COMMENTS

  1. I scored a working Newton eMate 300 at Goodwill for $25 (average price on eBay as well), which is arguably superior to the Dana on just about every point. I did have to build a new battery pack (the original would only hold a few hours’ charge), but a set of torx, 4 Energizer NiMHs, and a little soldering later and I was good to go.

    — C

  2. I’m also a user of PalmOS for ebook reading – I have a Sony Clie UX50 that I got a while back off of ebay. My main problem with it is battery life, and that’s something that seems to be common to many modern portable devices. Sure, the fancy new UMPCs are nice and can do anything you want them to do, but their battery life seems quite a bit worse than that of the less capable devices of yesteryear.

  3. I laid down $75 on eBay for a used Dell Axim x3i PDA and it’s been a great deal. I added some mods:

    -$25 1700mA battery …I can read in the bathroom/before falling asleep for days and days without recharging, or go 2 days with constant, heavy use.
    -$25 Hard case …coming from an old HP Jornada with a nice hard cover, I knew this would be a necessity.

    I already had a 2GB SD card so I plugged that right in.

    So for $125 I got a nice light PDA with a great color screen, wireless networking, ~2GB of storage. Also I have found a lot of .lit files so it’s nice to have MS Reader capabilities. Mostly I use uBook for reading and it’s been great to have for use with Manybooks. I flip pages with the jog dial on the side or the joypad on the front.

    I didn’t really expect to use the wireless, but I’ve been astounded to find that Google’s mobile versions of GMail, Google Reader, etc. are awesome.

    My only complaint is the fact that there is not a lot of variety of free software on the windows pocket pc platform. If you do want something out of the ordinary, prepare to pay money for it.

    In my case, the games weren’t knocking my socks off, until I downloaded the Nintendo emulator and loaded up some old Golf/Tennis/etc. games 🙂

    I also understand that MilkyTracker is available for the device so I’ll try to make some music too.

    Hope it’s ok to post my alternate purchase here – I’m doing so in case anybody else is rushing over to eBay and wants other ideas.

  4. My Dana is kept near the bed when I am in the middle of writing articles. Good things occur to me in the night. Switch Dana on, no booting up, so ready to go. Write, switch off, autosaved. Very simple. Neither my netbook or pda can’t match that, or the full-size (evidently Samsung) keyboard, which I like the feel of. In some lights, Dana’s not easy to read even with the backlight on. But good battery life, yea! The Dana suits me brilliantly for some purposes.

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