[gps-talkusers] Re: a road trip

Jason,

You may have missed a recent post where I mentioned an article in Access 
World comparing BrailleNote GPS and Trekker. It is like comparing apples 
and oranges. Just because the two products are both GPS, doesn't make them 
similar. As Charles said, if you want a stand alone, Trekker is the only 
option and it is a good one. There are huge benefits to having a PDA for 
portable information access. If one has or obtains a PDA, then the 
BrailleNote GPS actually costs less than Trekker. The Pac Mate's Street 
Talker you sawis still not on the market. If you have a Pac Mate, it will 
be your only solution at the moment. The price will be quite reasonable and 
the functionality pretty basic but it will do the job.

As I told a California O&M conference last week, it is no longer a matter 
of "If" you should have GPS, it is now a matter of which one to get. There 
are only the 2 products currently available, Trekker and BrailleNote GPS. 
The Pac Mate unit is coming soon and probably a cell phone option in the 
next year. I am quite confident, based upon almost 5 years on the market, 
that Sendero's GPS software will remain the most mature GPS product on 
whatever platform we run it.

Mike
To read the November product review in Access World, go to
http://www.afb.org/accessworld
The Article is called Getting from Point A to Point B.

It is a pretty good evaluation of both units I think. There are some
inaccuracies. Make sure you read the Manufacturer's comments at the bottom
of the review. For some reason, they did the review using the Magellan 310
receiver, which we haven't shipped for a year even though I sent them an
Earthmate. They were also using Beta software before all features and
documentation were complete.


PM 11/8/2004, you wrote:
>Hi there Angie,
>I have recently gone to my first workshop to see how the GPS systems work
>for the blind. I had been waiting for about a year for the system to finally
>becomee available. The system I saw is put together by the company Freedom
>Scientific who produce the speech system "JAWS"-which I use on my desk and
>lap tops. The system I saw uses the freedom scientific's "Packmate" for the
>user to enter destination etc. Apparently, the actual GPS system is an off
>the shelf staand alone system. The Packmate itself to buy is about $2,000
>U.S The GPS system is about $400. I do not need the Laptop features of the
>Packmate i.e email, wordd processor etc as I have a laptop. I mainly would
>just like a small, light and cheep system which has speech. I obviously need
>to be able to enter my destination etc. I have only seen the one system.
>However, I have come across a number of others on the net. Which one are
>using? Can you suggest a more affortable system.
>I look forward to hearing from you
>JasonttI
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Angie Hiser" <angiehgp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: <gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 10:18 PM
>Subject: [gps-talkusers] a road trip
>
>
> > Good Morning all,
> > Woo Hoo,
> > I went on a little road trip over the week-end. I had such a great time
> > with my gps!
> > I can remember before I had my gps, I hated even short trips! But now I
> > wish I could go on a longer one. I knew right where we were ,  how much
> > longer it was going to be ,  what was around us ,  and how much longer we
> > had to go. It was a great time for me to sit and mess around with it until
> > I got it right!
> > I have to tell you, I have  6 and 7 year old daughters. They were in the
> > back seat, first they were a little upset because I had my headphones on
> > so
> > they could not hear the system. But I did not want to bug my mom who was
> > driving.  The whole way there they were so full of questions. How much
> > longer mom, how long have we been driving. I was able to tell them how far
> > we had already went and how much farther we had to go. It was real cute!
> > They really like mom's new gps! And mom loves to be able to   tell them
> > these things!
> > Thank you so much for all those of you that worked  endlessly on this !
> > What a wonderful thing you have all done!
> >
> > Sincerely, a very happy person,
> > Angie
> >
> >
> >
> >

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