Hello all, Here are my M-power observations since I received it on Friday, September 2nd. I'm writing this with the M-power so anyone wishing to evaluate how this EMAIL may look once it reaches the list can feel free to analyze how well this works as they wish. Just don't analyze my poor writing (grin smile)! I hope what I say will ease some of the concerns about this product on this list.
My wife Dar thought the M-power was lighter when she first saw it out of the box. We both were impressed with the newer braille display. The intensity of how the dots come up can be adjusted in the braille display menu. I haven't seen much difference in the settings of the display so I keep it on the default of 5. One can hardly tell whether the display is functioning or not. One doesn't notice the thump thump on this newer display as the dots change position as one does with the older displays. Of course, new is always better than the old but this truly is a sharp display. It is a pleasure to read with it. It is a far better display than the immediate competition, there is no contest! The M-power display may not have the wear and tear of the older displays because of its smooth operation but time will tell. I think the speech is clearer perhaps better pronunciation. The speech voice is much the same as it was but I think the M-power speaks more clearly. It may or may not make a difference to anyone depending on hearing loss. I'm more pleased with the speech on my M-power than my 32 BT even though I still say the speech on my older unit is quite good! Ear buds and headphones work so much better on the M-power. One doesn't need to drastically set the volume higher for headphones. I rarely set the volume between the speaker and headphones with the M-power. I charged the battery twice since I received this unit. The battery gage went to a hundred percent both times and stayed at a hundred percent once I disconnected the AC adapter. It went down to 99 percent soon after the charger was disconnected and the battery seems to last quite a while between charges thus far. On the second time of charging, I noticed that the gage was at 94 percent after two hours. I left the M Power plugged in much longer and once I got home from church, it was at 96 percent. The percentage was the same when I disconnected the adapter. I kept it plugged in till the gage reached 100 percent. I think the gage may have calibrated this time around which accounted for how long the battery took to charge. I didn't get much notice once the battery reached zero percent. I'll know more in time about the battery life but I'm not complaining thus far. Kathy Williams take note! I downloaded 133 messages with both BN units. I left the messages on the server. The BN 32 BT took 6 minutes and 16.6 seconds according to the M-power stopwatch to download all 133 messages. The M-power took 2 minutes 7.18 seconds according to the BN BT stopwatch to download the same mail. Emptying the trash and clearing database space is a snap! One barely has a chance to breathe and the process is done! This unit is quick! I'm keeping messages on the server for a while longer so I hope to update you on how much quicker the M-power is than my older BN BT. Of course, one must consider the limited disk space and the processor speed when comparing the two units ability to download EMAIL. I like the way the M-power turns wireless on automatically when one wishes to go on the web or download EMAIL. One still must turn wireless off after being on the web or downloading EMAIL. I neglected to say I'm on a wireless DSL connection here. Being able to listen to streaming audio on a portable device is truly nice! I would say the M-power works well on the "free streams". ACB Radio was the first stream I tried. It was a snap to get to and listen. I also listened to a MONTANA Radio Station stream, and some other streams on Bill Sparks dot com as well as radio-locator dot com. I tried to get into the XM Radio site, listen at XM Radio dot com. I got into their web site okay but when I tried to receive a stream, I was told by their site in no uncertain terms that I needed to update my web browzer since my present browzer couldn't support the new features in their player. I got such a kick out of what I heard, I tried it again! One can get their site as I described it above and one must write it together, or one can go to wwwddxmradioddcom and select "listen now". One can get a three day trial on their programming otherwise one pays $7 a month to get the stream or close to $14 a month if one has one of their receivers. WSM Radio is another site which became a "pay site" so doubt it is available to the M-power. This is why I say the M-power probably works best on the "free streams". Passing files from my PC to the M-power is so much faster now through the network. I was able to get both MP3 and wav files to my M-power and play them with no difficulty. I was pleasantly surprised to find how quickly I was able to copy these files and play them with no difficulty whatsoever. I may have found one file that wouldn't play but it wouldn't play on my PC either. The playback on the wav file player is very good. I'll have more to say about it later. I went to Voice of the Nation's Blind dot org to listen to a particular file. I could hear one file from that site with no problem but I couldn't hear the file I wished to listen to. I kept hearing something about unfamiliar media so couldn't hear what I wanted to hear. This morning, I was able to hear the introduction of the May Humanware Newsletter on the humanware site. I'll listen to more of it when I have time. I can see that I have a wonderful world of streaming audio waiting for me when I wish to hear new info rmation or music. I'm looking forward to being a part of this new world with my M-power. The most disappointing feature to me on the M-power is the Memo Recorder. Perhaps I don't understand digital recording very well! This is the first digital recorder I have used at length. The memo recorder plays back wav files very nicely provided they were recorded or created elsewhere. Based on how my unit operates, this memo recorder is good for voice only whether it is on the low quality settings or the high quality settings. One can record their audio memos if they aren't too far from the microphone. One doesn't have to hold the M-power or external microphone to their face though. The default factory setting for recording with the internal microphone is level 12. When I attempt to record at this setting, my recording is faint and the recording is weak with a fuzzy distorted sound as if I were talking through wax paper. The speech is not intelligible and the speech is intermittent! Level ten seems to give me the best recording quality but I hear a degree of white noise and a slight frying sound in the background of my recording. Speech from the notetaker comes in very well for obvious reasons if I happen to leave my unit in record and attempt to operate other functions with my M-power. The memo recorder in my unit is adequate for memos and I might send voice attachments in an EMAIL or two, but I don't think it would record music very well especially that piano recital. There are other devices on the market which would better serve such a purpose. I think a $20 to $40 cassette recorder could do as well or better for a recital than would my particular M-power unit. There might be some kind of component breakdown inhibiting my unit from recording properly, I really don't know! To my knowledge, the memo recorder isn't stereo either. I could be wrong about this conclusion though. I can safely say my unit doesn't support levels 11 through 15 with the internal microphone. I placed the level with an external microphone to 35. I couldn't hear anything at all from that attempt to record. I could hear the external microphone when I set the record level to a lower setting. I may need to check the battery in the microphone perhaps. The playback is fine with my memo recorder but I question whether the record feature is working properly in my unit. I'll be happy to send anyone interested attachments when recording at level 10, 11 and 12. This should show what I'm talking about. Web braille seems to be working better on the M-power. I can now reach the listing of braille books at the end of the web page. I can again get into the list to download volumes once again. My older BN BT was able to get that page as well so maybe NLS fixed the problem, I really don't know! I haven't downloaded any books lately so that is for another EMAIL. I haven't interfaced my M-power with my Juliet braille embosser but I hope to accomplish that soon! I haven't tried the bluetooth feature so that is something I'll look forward to. I'll be happy to try web sites when I can to see how accessible they will be for the M-power if that would be helpful to anyone. As I wrote this EMAIL, I noticed the speech cut out for no apparent reason. I turned the speech to on request to off and back on again and everything was fine. This happened three times while I wrote this post. Thanks for reading! Jim Aldrich
