Re: Braille Focus 40: Worth it or not?
I have a friend who has it and I have been able to test it some. But after all of that I very much prefer the orbit, because its just purely convenient, even for carrying and reading stuff everywhere. You could argue and think that 20 cell is really just half of your 40 cells and be satisfied with that, lol. For one, the auto scroll can refresh every one second if you really think you are that fast at reading and comprehending 20 cells (mine is fine a 3.4, thanks). In terms of cost and so on I find the orbit to be very functional as well, and the braille on it just really feels unique and very easy to read, its way better than the one in the focus 40 to be honest. Plus with add ons for NVDA such as braille extender, functionality of pretty much any display, including the orbit, increases substantially. I also do a lot of reading and even though it could be small for serious readers, it still gets the job done.
I was checking out the user guide for the focus 40 and well, it does have some more navigation controls and so on (not sure what braille firmness is though) but it lacks a truly unique feature that the orbit has and which I actually enjoy a lot, especially when i go on trips or need time to pass by which is the stand alone mode. In this mode it is possible to have books loaded from an sd card and the basic note taking and organization of files helps a lot as well. In fact, i normally use the orbit in this mode, I even teach braille with it, plus having the option to replace or service the battery is just much more reassuring. As for the focus, sadly there is no mention of other apps, or even android pairing on that user guide. Sure, its one of the features, but its just... a feature that is not conveniently explained but hey its in the front page, so why not. I know though that for one, NVDA supports the focus 40, not sure if it is in the list of devices for brailleBack for android or on the mac world though. But in short, when that braille display is not connected to a computer its just impossible to read or do much, except for well, running the diagnostic modes and cleaning the display I guess.
The canute, though, does really really grab my attention but of course its not been commercially released yet.
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