AlphaSmart Neo
(Amazon “smile” link with affiliate code included)

After the Dana, I started looking around at other devices, including other models that AlphaSmart had to offer.

I thought about trying the Neo2, but there were a few problems with that.
One, it wasn’t available for sale on the website…or anywhere else, for that matter.
Two, the price listed on the website is, apparently, for schools only.
Three, near as I can tell, the additional storage (over the original Neo) is only for applications.
I sent an email to the company to confirm details; I’ll post their reply as soon as I track it down.
(Update: I’ve tracked down the email.)

Anyway, after the answers they gave me, I decided the original Neo would be good enough.
Back to eBay, and $70 for a new device this time. This one came with a rechargeable battery, and the AC adapter, and the cable to hook it up to a computer.

The Neo features a 700 hour battery life–I haven’t timed it myself, and it’s even charged from the computer, so I have no idea how accurate that is.
I also don’t know if the battery has that memory effect that some older types do. Worst case scenario, I may have to buy a new battery–or at least drop in three normal AA’s–but that will be a while. I’ve had the thing about six months, and it’s yet to drop below 95%.

The Neo’s word processor does not allow any formatting the way the Dana’s did, but that’s no problem. I just use underscores to indicate italics and asterisks for bold; once I send the text into an open document, Word automatically formats the text as needed. (Almost. I’ve found that it doesn’t auto-format when I have other punctuation next to the underscores or asterisks.)

I’m quite satisfied with the Neo, though I do wish I could save more text on it. Like, say, an entire NaNo novel? The current estimate is that it can hold less than 20,000 words.

Related articles

• Writing Devices – AlphaSmart Neo2 (sidequestpublications.wordpress.com)
• Writing Devices – AlphaSmart Dana (sidequestpublications.wordpress.com)
• Writing Devices – Entourage Edge (sidequestpublications.wordpress.com)
• Writing Space of Author Jennifer McAndrews (teacherwriter.net)
• Quicky with a NEO (inbetweencolumns.wordpress.com)