[access-uk] Re: Notetakers again

Hi Graham
I was interested to read all your comments. I do agree with you that using a laptop has its issues too, particularly with limited battery life and needing to connect it to another external device like a Braille display if required.
But if what I've heard today is true - and I have absolutely no reason to doubt my source - then I'm appalled that you would need to send your own PM, minus its display, back to America to have it replaced with a refurbished unit containing the Omni upgrade. Add to that the money they want, plus shipping, and I think it staggers belief. When my BN once had an upgrade to the latest motherboard of the time, I simply sent it back to what was then Pulse Data. It never went back to New Zealand, it took a couple of days, and it wasn't replaced with another unit either. Mind you, I appreciate there was no way of removing the display to do that. Nevertheless, I am not happy with that way of doing things. It stinks of extortion to me, and all part of the reason why I wouldn't have another note-taker unless I really needed to do a course or job that required it. I can't comment on Braille Sense as I haven't seen it. I'm always very interested to know what note-takers are about, but the money for them is frankly criminal when they just don't do the job properly, least not for me. 

Jackie
----- Original Message ----- From: "Graham Page" <gpage@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2008 8:02 PM
Subject: [access-uk] Re: Notetakers again
the critical problem with the pacmate was that it used a version of Windows 
Mobile before Windows Mobile 5 and, when the battery died so did any data
that you had not saved to a memory card or similar device.  This issue at
least ought to be fixed with the release of PacMate Omni, but it really is
difficult to say what Braille support would be like. Also, a number of
people had issues with data being lost and a hard reset being required if
the Braille display was disconnected from PacMate. I don't know if this one 
is yet solved either.

Personally I want a Braille note taker that will allow me to take notes in
meetings and write Word documents on a train that can be exported to my PC
and work with minimal fuss.  I want a device really that will support word
documents properly and I would probably choose to work with a QWERTTY
keyboard if I had to choose one over the other but, ideally, I would like to 
use both and choose between them.
In many ways, a laptop would be ideal for many users as they will read Word documents and indeed many other formats. They can be got to play many audio formats. They can be very portable. Braille displays are small and can be 
carried in the bag with the laptop.
As well as the inconvenience of having to connect the Braille display to the 
laptop whenever it is to be used, the other problem is that laptops take
some time to boot up and this can be a disadvantage though one that most
could live with I think.

The real problem for laptops is battery life.  I thinnk that with a speech
synthesiser and a USB or Bluetooth Braille display you would do well to get 5 hours out of a laptop. A Braillenote MPower lasts about 15 hours and the 
new PacMate Omni claims to have a battery life of over 25 hours

In summary then I would say Braillenote is the more flexible option as it
has Bluetooth and is really designed with the Braille user in mind. the new 
PacMate Omni looks an interesting proposition as data storage ought to be
sorted but Braille is much more of a bolt-on issue for this device. Laptops 
offer most flexibility and they can be portable but battery life is a
serious issue and you will have to connect the Braille display up whenever
you want to use the laptop which could be inconvenient.

Regards

Graham


Graham Page
Home Phone: 0207 265 9493
Mobile: 07753 607980
Fax:  0870 706 2773
Email: gpage@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
MSN: gabriel_mcbird@xxxxxxxxxxx
Skype: gabriel_mcbird
----- Original Message ----- From: "Jackie Cairns" <cairnsplace@xxxxxxx> 
To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2008 12:01 PM
Subject: [access-uk] Re: Notetakers again


Hi Ari

Having used both BrailleNote (though not MPower) and Pac Mate, I can tell
you briefly my experiences with the two units.  BrailleNote, as it used to
be in its classic format, was solid and robustly built. But my gripes with 
it were, firstly, you couldn't work with true Word documents because they
were saved as RTF files and, therefore, caused formatting issues for me.
Secondly, I could overwrite on BrailleNote, which meant that as a very fast 
Braillist, it was easy for me to trip it up in the middle of a shorthand
exam, causing the text to jump portions and land elsewhere in the document. 

But Pac Mate had some horrendous issues that I couldn't stand, namely its
poor battery life, complicated chord structure, and loss of data.  The
latter has been a real source of aggro for years, and is something that a
really close friend of mine is having hassle with on a daily basis.

If you take them at face value and use them simply as note-takers, I would
have to say that the Humanware product is more reliable and robustly built. 
In some ways, I wish I'd not jumped ship to Pac Mate, thinking it would be
better to work with off-the-shelf software. It doesn't always work out that 
way.  At the time, BrailleNote didn't support Bluetooth and struggled with
the Internet and networking.  I can't speak for the MPower as I've never
used it. But my sources tell me it really has stepped up a few gears since 
the early 2000s.

If someone were to ask me what to go for now, I think I'd say think very
carefully what you need the device for, and go from there.  BrailleNote
worked for me a treat at college to a point, but it dropped me right in it a few times as well. But Pac Mate's problems are more serious and I wouldn't recommend that family at all now, having found it out to my cost. I've had my friend literally in tears on the phone because he's lost data at crucial times during his work. He now has to save data on the internal flash memory of Pac Mate, which is quite lousy. It has a known issue of resetting itself at random, which causes everything you've saved to be lost. Yes, you could 
use CF cards to overcome the problem, which I largely did, but it still
reset itself on me for nothing, and I felt like introducing it to the garden via a closed window on many occasions (smile). Support for it isn't clever 
either, and I'm only being honest.

Good luck.

Jackie
----- Original Message ----- From: "ari" <aridamoulakis@xxxxxxxxx> 
To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2008 11:32 AM
Subject: [access-uk] Re: Notetakers again



Hi Ian and Ray,
Thanks for these, I just wish Humanware could offer some sort of trade in
or something. About the braille sense, does anyone know what languages it
can support or does it just support English? Also Ian, with the MPower, do 
you have to write in computer braille (which I've really not liked at
all!)?
Thanks
Ari
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