Comments on: AlphaSmart Develops Talking Word Processor for Dana

Remember that AlphaWord is just a dummied-down (rrr..simplified) version of WordSmith. I use it as a laptop with WSmith as a key part of the solution. So looking at it that way you could use TealDoc to read/write txt files if you wanted/needed native for some reason. But the Rich Text formating of Wsmith (both it and TealDoc take advantage of Dana's extra-wide screen) (prints the rich text too) makes WORD a non-need. (Comments in Wsmith and the whole nine yards). Conversion to WORD makes sense, of course when you have to send a doc to WORD-only users, but I avoid those people! Anyway--it's the same boat in that regard all palm users are in. Qword also works fine on Dana (again, uses the wide-screen), but I don't care for that program as much--too slow).

I wonder how this pig is really selling - and I don't want to hear anecdotal evidence - let's see real total sales volume numbers. I agree with you, this is just a pointless, silly, underfeatured, overpriced product.

And it makes sense for those of us who are mobile professionals that need a fantastic battery life and real reliability. Don't start on the IBM (or MAC) laptop thing--THEY are expensive, they break easily (I have owned several), and you can't (or shouldn't) just leave them in the car when you don't want to carry it somewhere. I recently used mine with great success doing case management during all of Florida's hurricanes (word processing, emailing, printing docs, incident reports, looking up numbers from the web, etc., etc.). It was a good thing not having to look for a power supply since in many places there wasn't one. And it's more rugged than most palms (I've had/have a lot of those too). Don't get me wrong--I love handhelds and use one of those too (on the occasions it makes more sense--Dana makes more sense when you think and use it more like a laptop than a PDA).

Not that this is for everyone. It all depends on your needs. Between doing long hours of work on a small screen in word processor or spread sheet docs, I personally like the Dana's huge screen (no wash-out in the sun if you work outside). I don't have anything to do education but my Dana makes me a ton of money doing work really effectively.

I'd love for it to have a similar screen/backlight scheme to the HE330. A handheld attempting to run a 400+mhz processor off the 3.5 volts that's currently crammed into most hand helds makes no sense to me.