[nabs-l] my experience of laptops versus notetakers from a different perspective

[Gerardo Corripio]

Hi guys: While in university I used a Braille Lite 18 in combination with a 
Windows PC. The Braille Lite 18 in school for the purposes you guys 
described (taking quick notes, taking notes during lectures, starting 
written assignments which I then transfered to the PC via the floppy disc, 
thus completing the formats and other elaborate details using Microsoft Word 
I believe 97, keeping tracks of appointments, phone numbers and the like), 
however the Braille Lite died and because here in Mexico the FS distributor 
doesn't take some things into consideration) I left it as a museum piece to 
recall the old days. Afterwards my desktop power supply died, thus getting a 
laptop which I've had now for about four and a hafl years.
Now my experiences between notetakers and laptops, especially from a 
perspective of living in a country where, as I said before, the FS 
distributor here has a lot to be desired, is that though I miss the 
quickness with which one can power on the notetaker and quickly retrieve 
info  (my laptop using Windows XP takes about five or ten minutes to be 
ready to use rather then a notetaker's instantly being available) what 
happens if the notetaker dies or gets a virus or whatever goes wrong? You're 
dead in the water! Now take the case of my laptop having to be reformated or 
repaired? It's a lot easier since I can get any computer tech to fix it, 
reformat it or do whatever needs to be done; jaws installation and other 
blindness-related software gets installed afterwards by oneself, but at 
least you're not as dead in the water with a laptop as with if you only have 
the notetaker to rely on!
Now take the cell phones: Aren't they so smart now that you can use them as 
notetakers in terms of being able to record appointments and the phone will 
let you know of these? Also aren't these new phones able to store contacts 
and other info like the sighted people can go in and retrieve this info? So 
how about using combination of laptop and cell phones? If the phone needs 
repair one only needs to take it to any repair place and once repaired and 
having installed Talx or Mobile Speak you're off to go! So probably my 
question would be for those of us living outside the US where FS or other 
blindness product companies maybe don't have reliavle distributors or these 
products are too expensive because of bringing them from abroad, aren't we 
nearly at the same playing field level as you guys who use blindness 
products with us using mainstream products?
Gerardo