[blindkid] Braille Sense Plus Vs. Braillenote

Sat Dec 4 19:31:18 UTC 2010

Thanks for your answer, my daughter is 11 and in 5th grade. She really likes her Braille Sense and wants the new one. The City School want's her to try the Braille Note as well, and we are meeting with the team to see which machine would be better. I think ultimately it will be up to her, and she will probably like you said pick the one she is more comfortable with. I do use a usb cable to look at what is in her BS and check her work, although she has to first convert it to text so I can read what is in her files. Her classroom teacher also does this to check her homework and make sure she keeps her files organized and in the right place, the file names though do not have to be converted to text in order to read them just what is in them. The other great thing we are also doing is her VI teacher can e-mail me whatever needs to go in her BS, like she had a school play, and I can download it on her laptop, connect her BS to it and drag the text (we use microsoft word) into a file and vuala!! she then has it in there, automatically converting it into braille. This has made things really simple.

We had been having issues with file moving. She has to cut and paste when she want's to move files whit in the BS, that is very time consuming, so I will go onto the laptop connect the BS to it and drag and move them for her, this will be something she will learn to do herself on her laptop. We are getting better at technologies this year.

Thanks again for your input.

Heidi

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Holloway <rholloway at gopbc.org>
To: NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children) <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sat, Dec 4, 2010 11:20 am
Subject: Re: [blindkid] Braille Sense Plus Vs. Braillenote

I haven't compared them side-by-side, but we have looked at the newest BrailleNote, the Apex (in Dallas at the convention this past July) and would really like to get one. I have only read about what I believe is the current version of the Braille Sense Plus. Looks like about $6,000. I think the Apex is in the same price range. 

We still have an mPower BrailleNote which is our 8-year-old's constant companion and she likes it very well, but I think she'd quite willingly trade the mPower and her little brother for an Apex. (Okay, perhaps I exaggerate a bit.) It is smaller, lighter and has many features not included on the mPower. If you're market for a new unit, I'd definitely give some consideration to the Apex. Here's a link to the Apex on HumanWare's site. 

http://www.humanware.com/en-usa/products/blindness/braillenotes/_details/id_161/braillenote_apex_qt_32.html 

And here is what looks like the current Braille Sense Plus on the GW Micro site: 

http://www.gwmicro.com/Braille_Sense/ 

With that said, part of why my daughter wants an Apex is undoubtedly that she is already familiar with the mPower and this is a nicer, newer version of what she has already. In your case that might be a reason to stay with the same unit you have in an updated model. We also have a PAC Mate (from Freedom Scientific) which is a good piece of gear and in some ways better than the BrailleNote. We bought the PAC Mate for her first, then she was assigned a BraillNote at school and (not surprisingly) she has grown to like best what she uses at school every day. She still uses the PAC Mate now and then, but mostly she uses the BrailleNote and then we pop the display off of her PAC Mate and she uses that with her desktop computer which works perfectly with JAWS (screen reader) on that. I think the Apex and BrailleSense can also be used in display mode, but it certainly is nice to just leave a display on the computer and not have to fiddle with plugging and unplugging the display to and from the computer. 

I do see that the latest Braille Sense Plus has a small LCD display built in and both the Braille Sense Plus and the BrailleNote Apex have built-in VGA ports for connections directly to a conventional monitor. That's what I'm hurting for here-- an easier way to see what is happening inside the machine as a sighted parent who sometimes still has to use a braille cheat sheet to try and read anything in braille. (We are forever loosing documents because they went in the wrong subdirectory or we forgot the filename so I want to be able to look at what is where for myself more easily.) Both machines also appear to have Built in Wifi as well as conventional (wired) Ethernet and Bluetooth. All three units (the two you asked about as well as the PAC Mate) use the same Pocket PC style operating system, Windows CE. 

If I might ask, what features are you needing the most and how old is your daughter, etc.? There are probably several good solutions for you but I suspect the answers you get might vary somewhat, based on your particulars. 

On Dec 4, 2010, at 9:27 AM, hpscheffer at aol.com wrote: 

> 
> Hi, wanted to get some feedback on anyones experience of the > Braille Sense Plus Vs. the Braillenote. My daughter has been using > the Braille Sense for the past 4 yrs. and loves it, but it is > outdated and we are looking at which one would be best for her for > the next few years. If anyone has had the opportunity to compare > both I would like to get your opinion. 
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks 
> 
> 
> Heidi 
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