Newton eMate 300

A while back I read a post by Doug Johnston over at D*I*Y Planner about a nifty-sounding little rig called an eMate. Originally made by Apple for the educational market, they're no longer in production, but the ones that are still around are tough little things. I picked one up on eBay for about $35.00 including shipping, and it arrived yesterday.

It's super cool. Better even than a laptop for portability, and there's no startup lag time--open the cover and start typing. We're just talking basics here, folks; word-processing, notes, calculator, etc. on a monochrome screen with backlight, but with re-celled batteries it can run for up to 24 hours. I still need a cable to connect it to my PC and I'll probably have to play around with software a bit, but it will export files in .rtf format so it should be a welcome addition to my writing tools.

My seven-year old son loves it and is already writing a story on it.