A Cheap And Portable Word Processor
For some time, I’ve lamented the massive bloatware that passes for today’s software. Back in college, four years worth of work fit on just 20 megabytes of hard disk. Now I get that much just in email before 10 AM.
Along with bloat comes a lack of battery life. I swear that my laptop lasts less than an hour when it’s unplugged.
I’ve had on my wishlist a cheap and portable word processor that would let me write when I’m on the plane, at a conference etc. Plain text would be fine, as long as I could transfer it to my laptop later.
Lo and behold, I ran across this article on Slashdot. Eagerly scanning the comments, it seemed like the best choices were the QuickPad and AlphaSmart lines of portable word processors. Alas, these cost $300-600 new, and even cost $200 on eBay. I was just about to give up when I decided to give Froogle a try. There, on the first page of search results, was a used QuickPad for just $29.99.
I quickly ordered the QuickPad, and hope that it arrives in time for me to take on my trip and provide you, my loyal readers, with a review.
found you while googling portable word processor. I also looked that that slashdot article and saw quickpad for ~$300 (on their website).
Tried froogle. now there is nothing under $100.
But now on ebay it is selling for under $30
Ironic.
I was going to go retro with a TRS-80 model 100 but now I might just grab a quickpad (it has USB!)
Anyway. Thanks for posting about this it was helpful.
Did you get that quickpad? How do you like it?
Again, I searched “portable word processor” on google and found you. Thanks for the links 🙂
Hey, I googled "portable word processor", and all of a sudden I was here.
Hi, I found this via the same route as the other comment-makers. I'm thinking of an alternative route – getting a proper keyboard as an accessory to my next mobile phone – you can get wireless ones, and I reckon it works out cheaper than the dedicated portable word processors.. unless I managed to find one for the price you did!
Thank you very much for posting this! It really helped me with trying to find an affordable word processor.
I'm wanting to order a portable word processor and intend to use it outdoors in sunlight. The Quickpad is not backlit, while the Alphasmart Neo is slightly backlit and Alphasmart Dana quite backlit. I'm guessing that backlighting diminishes visibility in daylight. How is the quality of screen visibility of your Quickpad outdoors?
mlockom@yahoo.com
Thanks,
Marsha Lockom