Students suddenly have become a hot new market for computer makers. First, there was Apple Computer's eMate, a lightweight computer based on the company's Newton technology.
Priced at $700 (£463), about half the average price for an average PC, the eMate comes with a word processor, spreadsheet, drawing program and much more.
Now Intelligent Peripheral Devices Inc, a Cupertino, California-based company, has released another lightweight and inexpensive computer called the AlphaSmart 2000. Retailing at a suggested price of $249, the AlphaSmart is what the company calls an "intelligent keyboard".
It lets students type in notes from a classroom or field trip and later transfer the work to a regular computer. The AlphaSmart works with both Macs and PCs.
It weighs two pounds with a full-sized keyboard and a four-line, 40-character display screen. It can save up to 64 pages of text and automatically saves work as students type. It also includes a 70,000-word spell-checking dictionary and lasts up to 300 hours with two AA batteries, according to the company.
You can check out the company's Web site at http://www.alphasmart.com (New York Times Service)
