Neo by AlphaSmart is aimed at students and professional use

AlphaSmart, Inc. is now shipping the Neo by AlphaSmart. Designed as a simple, and cheaper solution for one-to-one classroom computing, the company watns this lightweight, rugged device to also appeal to mobile professionals, due to its full-size keyboard and expansion capabilities.

"AlphaSmart computer companions have earned a reputation within the education community as a writing tool that allows the creative process to take place virtually anytime, anywhere," said Manish Kothari, president of AlphaSmart. "With Neo, our goal was to enhance the features that make the writing and editing process easy and efficient, while also building new functionality into the device to extend its use for keyboarding instruction, classroom quizzes, outlining and more."

Based on the updated SmartApplet architecture, Neo is lightweight (two pounds), rugged, easy to use and features more than 700 hours of battery life (on 3 AA alkaline batteries). It provides twice the memory and storage capacity of the AlphaSmart 3000, and a 50% larger screen with support for variable font sizes so users can see more of their work on screen without scrolling.

To simplify classroom management, Neo features AlphaSmart Manager 2, a second-generation solution that enables educators to streamline the configuration and exchange of files for up to 30 devices from a Windows or Macintosh computer.