Probably no other company but Apple could create as elegant a product as the eMate 300. This little device is something of a hybrid: it is neither a notebook computer nor a MessagePad in the normal personal digital assistant sense.
The eMate 300 originally was intended for young school children, which explains both the weight - 1.8 kilograms including the 24-hour battery - and the size of the keyboard. Despite these factors, it has found its biggest following among adults looking for a small and lightweight tool to do their computing.
The eMate is the size of a normal sub-notebook computer except for its rather odd clam shell shape. It has an LCD display slightly larger than a normal Newton which is backlit at the push of a button and is powered by an ARM chip. There is also space for the standard PC card configurations.
The eMate 300 is another example of the time and effort Apple puts into design and it pays off with an elegant interface that can be used without referring to the manual.
The rank beginner may find a few things difficult at first, but that is true of many things.
The few people I have shown the eMate 300 to have found it quite easy to use.
Just as the original PC was not really intended for popular home use, however, this is yet another example of how a technology that is intended for one purpose becomes a big hit in another.