AlphaSmarts Appear Omni-Smart Purchase
by January 21, 2002 12:00 am 80 views
Leave it to a newspaper editor to find a low-tech solution for a high-tech need.
Kent Marts, editor of the Benton County Daily Record, was flipping through a trade journal last summer when he discovered a new electronic keyboard and monitor product that could increase his newspaper’s productivity at an affordable price. A few months later, he made the Daily Record the first publication in Northwest Arkansas to outfit its reporters with AlphaSmart word processors.
For a $1,750 investment, Marts got seven AlphaSmart 3000s that give his reporters the mobility of laptop computers at a fraction of the cost. The 1.5-pound units offer no Internet access or fancy software. But they have four-line screens, save automatically and will hold up to eight 12-page files.
For those who remember the Tandy portables of the 1980s and early 1990s, the AlphaSmart is like a bigger and better cousin.
“[The AlphaSmarts] are extremely durable and dirt cheap,” said John Moore, the Daily Record’s Benton County beat reporter.
“And now when I’m covering a meeting, I can crank out 100 inches of notes without breaking a sweat. Trying to write so much stuff out by hand takes a lot longer and is often less accurate than typing it. Everyone in the newsroom loves them.”
Four models of AlphaSmarts range in price from $175 (bulk purchase rate) to $249 for one top-line unit plus 3 percent for shipping and handling. The base models include a cable and user’s guide and will connect to most printers via a serial port and any computer platform via a USB port.
AlphaSmart Inc. of Cupertino, Calif., was founded in 1992 as Intelligent Peripheral Devices Inc. by three former Macintosh executives — Manish Kothari, Ketan Kothari and Joe Barrus. The name was changed to AlphaSmart Inc. in 1999, and the company now bills its product as the “easiest-to-use portable writing tool in the world.”
The portable word processors were developed to help elementary school children learn to type more quickly, and the education sector is still a major market for the company. An entire classroom of about 30 students can be outfitted with AlphaSmarts for $6,800-$7,500 while it would cost $30,000-$40,000 to equip the same students with popular laptop computers.
The AlphaSmart 3000 has received rave reviews from scores of places such as Digital Edge and The New York Times. The Times’ November review said, “Most laptops cost thousands of dollars, break easily and need recharging after two hours. The AlphaSmart 3000 ($230) costs far less and is no more fragile than a Frisbee. A two-pound slab with a keyboard and a four-line screen, it lasts 700 hours on a set of three AA batteries.”
Marts said by the time users add software to popular laptop PCs, they probably couldn’t buy one of those for what he paid for seven of the new word processors.
“These AlphaSmarts allow our reporters to transform periods of nonproductivity, such as waiting around the courthouse for another session, into writing time,” Marts said. “It really speeds up meeting coverage. Instead of coming back from a night meeting close to deadline with handwritten notes, our reporters can come back and within a few minutes download what they’ve already written.”
Marts even bought one for his son Jeff Marts, 12, to use for taking notes at school and doing homework.