eMate 300

Background

The eMate 300 was a personal digital assistant designed for the education market as a low-cost laptop running the Newton operating system. It was the only Newton device with a built-in keyboard. The eMate was introduced March 7, 1997 for $799 U.S. and was discontinued along with the Apple Newton product line and its operating system on February 27, 1998. The keyboard was roughly 85% the size of a standard "full size" keyboard. Power came from built-in rechargeable batteries, which lasted up to 28 hours on full charge. In order to achieve its low price, the eMate 300 did not have all the features of the contemporary Newton equivalent, the MessagePad 2000. The eMate used a 25 MHz ARM 710a RISC processor and had less memory than the MessagePad 2000 which used a StrongARM 110 RISC processor and was more expandable. Unlike the MessagePad line, the eMate 300 featured an internal memory expansion slot. The eMate 300 featured a green-colored translucent durable case designed for intense use in classrooms. The eMate 300 featured a dark green-colored keyboard similar to that of PowerBooks of the same era.