(Guest writer Greg Pappas)
I am writing this review from my newly acquired Alphasmart NEO, waiting for my friend to show up so I can help him finish his move from one place to another. I have the NEO in my lap in the driver seat, which is where I am typing this up from. It’s safe to say I’ve never done this before.
This is a three-part review as a guest on my friend Justin Reinhart’s blog. You already know his name, but now you know I am his friend! You and I can also be friends. But friends is not the topic here, so I’ll pipe down on my digression.
The reason for this being a three-part review is that I am too impatient to just wait a good amount of time to make a full one-off report on this device. Plus, I figured this would be a great way to divide the review into different “time slots” so to speak. This review will be my initial thoughts; the second will be my thoughts on how I’ve taken to the device after writing into my blog, novel and countless short stories; the third will be my final impressions on the device, its performance and the demands I ask of it. I can already tell you now that this beats my netbook I was using as a portable no-distractions writing device by miles.
So, having gotten this far, my favorite thing now is the keys. They click and clack into a satisfying sound and feel. I now understand those IBM keyboard enthusiasts. Keys matter, for real! This device is all about writing, and they knew that was important too. I’ve come to immediately appreciate it.
The weight is nice: no more than two pounds. The screen is good for four lines of text and takes up for most of the weight in the device. I wish they had built a handle into the top of the screen, but that’s just me.
The four line maximum on the screen, by the way, is not a hindrance whatsoever. You really don’t need more than that if you just keep up your writing momentum. I never look back on the lines I’m typing unless I stop for a day or so and need to recap. That’s it.
There are shortcut keys specifically made to make things convenient on this device. You have shortcut keys for saving in the 8 different save slots, a spell check, print, send, find and the on/off button. The on/off button is just a normal key, but if you find it being hit on accident often, there is another way you can turn it on by using the hold-a-button-and-hit-another-button method. Not unlike performing the shortcut for pasting things (ctrl+v). There are other shortcuts that use this method that give you access to word count and a Thesaurus. Also, I should mention that during spell check, you can add words to the Dictionary.
I’m now typing from work and it’s so well concealed due to its size and portability that I could do this all day. It’s pretty great.
I’ll stop here, but I’ll cover more in the next couple of weeks when I’ve had a chance to see just how much writing I can get done in that time.
Buy an Alphasmart NEO @ Amazon.com