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AlphaSmart Neo

6owners with an opinion
100%of verdicts positive
5/0positive/negative since 2024
0happy after 3+ years

Praised for ease of use; criticized for value.

What owners wrote

Neutral
I've seen the pattern again and again: I'll finally be able to write once I acquire . I'll paste something I wrote on a previous similar topic: [Regarding the devices] The various iterations all look quite attractive, and the final one especially looks kind of like if an Apple IIc and a computer from Brazil had a baby – in a good way! I congratulate the creator on producing so much real hardware and not just renders; I’ve designed and made hardware and it’s hard as hell! But I’ve also written a pretty good bit (not just code documentation and emails but fiction, short stories), and it’s also hard as hell, and like a lot of people who want to write things I’ve dabbled with all sorts of instruments that I’m convinced will finally be the trick to make the words come out good. I’ve used legal pads, and composition books, and spiral notebooks, and grid paper notepads. I’ve written with pencils, and ballpoints, and fountain pens, and dip pens with a whole variety of nibs and inks (admittedly that was mostly just for fun). I’ve written in Acme on Plan 9, in Emacs and Vi on Linux, in Google Docs on a cheap Chromebook, and in BBEdit on a Mac SE/30. I’ve also used a mechanical typewriter, a Selectric electric typewriter, and an AlphaSmart Neo 2. So I say the following from experience: * Writing is difficult to do well, regardless of how you’re getting the words down. * It’s easy to distract yourself, regardless of how you’re getting the words down. * One of the easiest ways to accompl…
Likes it
I use an Alphasmart Neo to write my novels. It's incredibly easy to focus with such a machine. If it just had bigger storage capacity and a microSD slot I'd never consider another option.
Likes it
> And here’s the most modern version of a practice keyboard I know of – itself a small computer. The author should check out the AlphaSmart line of devices made into the early 2000s, especially the early pre-PalmOS devices! I was kind of surprised not to see any on the list. My Neo2 is basically a very simple buffer you can type into and dump into a computer later. It transmits to computer by emulating a USB keyboard and dumping the contents keystroke by keystroke into whatever program you happen to have running. In addition though it has a very simple typing tutor. There's not much to it, it's no true Mavis Beacon alternative but it's a fun little addition to such a simple device. I actually work with a number of former AlphaSmart employees, which is funny because I bought my Neo2 as a writing aid before I knew any of this. I was telling a coworker about it and he replies "You know I worked on that, right?" No, I did not. Small world.
Doesn’t like it
The various iterations all look quite attractive, and the final one especially looks kind of like if an Apple IIc and a computer from Brazil had a baby -- in a good way! I congratulate the creator on producing so much real hardware and not just renders; I've designed and made hardware and it's hard as hell! But I've also written a pretty good bit (not just code documentation and emails but fiction, short stories), and it's also hard as hell, and like a lot of people who want to write things I've dabbled with all sorts of instruments that I'm convinced will finally be the trick to make the words come out good. I've used legal pads, and composition books, and spiral notebooks, and grid paper notepads. I've written with pencils, and ballpoints, and fountain pens, and dip pens with a whole variety of nibs and inks (admittedly that was mostly just for fun). I've written in Acme on Plan 9, in Emacs and Vi on Linux, in Google Docs on a cheap Chromebook, and in BBEdit on a Mac SE/30. I've also used a mechanical typewriter, a Selectric electric typewriter, and an AlphaSmart Neo 2. So I say the following from experience: 1. Writing is difficult to do well, regardless of how you're getting the words down. 2. It's easy to distract yourself, regardless of how you're getting the words down. 3. One of the easiest ways to accomplish #2 is by dreaming about the next perfect writing tool that will really make your writing sing just as soon as you muster up the courage to click "Buy". 4. Once y…
Likes it
Sure thing! Third party apps yes (see: palmdb.net), but obviously not typical 3rd party services (no Spotify, etc.). I mostly use a few models of Handspring Visor, typically grayscale, so not even the latest OS. Visor Edge for something as thin and sleek as a modern phone. Visor Neo if I want expandability (similar to pg6-7 in the Ars article). There's a fun module that adds both more memory and a vibrate motor for alarms, but I'll swap that out for a camera or mp3 module at times. Charge or swap batteries once or twice a month. Common tasks: * Notes, To Dos, Contacts, Calendar ( excellent stock calendar, per @j45 above) * Alarms & Reminders (stock + Diddlebug, which lets you draw/write notes w/ a timer) * Offline browsing (Plucker can crawl pages and sync them) * Weather (note: cached on sync because my Palm doesn't have wifi) * Calorie tracking * Games (we have a Wordle port!) * Longform writing - I have a foldable keyboard and usually use plaintext, but there are word processing apps that save to HTML if you want. I also often write on an Alphasmart Neo, which can IR beam back and forth with the Palm and PC. * Personal project tracking/flows * Photos (technically video too, but only have 8MB memory for everything ) I have newer PDAs too that can natively handle things like voice recording, cameras, video playback, etc., but I really like the grayscale ones. A late Clié like a VZ90 or some of the others in this thread will have more bells and whistles (even OLED!). Note…