[nfbcs] Notetaker Reviews

[Gary Wunder]

Hello Joe. I don't have a lot of information to share with you, but at least 
that means my note will be relatively brief.

I have used a BrailleNote from Humanware for quite a while now. I'm very 
impressed with the way that it lets me edit documents, and I have used 
KeySoft long enough that it now seems intuitive to me whereas it might not 
have before. I like the fact that I do not get bogus messages from Windows 
which come from trying to use software which was really designed for 
something else.

The long and short of why I use a BrailleNote over a Pac mate is very 
simple. What I noticed was a significant difference in the rate of time it 
took to refresh the Braille display when I said I wanted the machine to 
advance to the next display full of Braille text. I like to deliver my 
remarks directly from the BrailleNote if I can. This gives me the 
opportunity to revise them almost up to the point where I deliver them. It 
may be that this allows me to slip in a piece of humor which occurred 30 
minutes before the banquet, or to incorporate what, after a daylong 
convention session appears to be a theme which was not apparent at the 
beginning. In any event, if you are going to use the Braille display for 
rapid reading, even a fraction of a second difference in how quickly the 
unit responds when you tell it to give you the next Braille line to read is 
of tremendous importance. I did not find that the Pac mate had nearly as 
rapid a refresh rate as did the BrailleNote, and in some respects I'm very 
sorry about that because I appreciated very much the quietness of the Pac 
mate keyboard relative to the BrailleNote.

I have no hands-on experience with the Braille Sense but have heard very 
good things about it from Curtis Chon and other people who work for the Iowa 
Department for the Blind. Perhaps they will chime in with some thoughts of 
their own.

Warmest regards,

Gary
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joe Orozco" <jsorozco at gmail.com>
To: "'NFBnet NFBCS Mailing List'" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>; "'National Association 
of Blind Students mailing list'" <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 06, 2009 8:09 PM
Subject: [nfbcs] Notetaker Reviews


> Hello,
>
> Sorry for the cross-post.
>
> Is it correct that the Braille Sense Plus, BrailleNote mPower and Pac Mate
> are the only three Braille notetakers at the moment?  I have an mPower I
> want to get rid of, but at six thousand dollars for a new device the damn
> thing had better do what I need it to.  KeySoft is not all that amusing 
> for
> me, but for anyone considering the mPower it has more to do with personal
> preference.
>
> I found a comparison chart on GW Micro's web site over these three 
> products,
> but I would be interested in another round of personal reviews from anyone
> who can speak to their likes and dislikes on the units.
>
> Thanks in advance for any assistance.
>
> Joe Orozco
>
> "A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the
> crowd."--Max Lucado
>
>
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