Hey Richard:
Glad you made this choice; and I hope you will choose to recommend hw
products over the competition! People need to know the truth and they know
that you have significant experience in this field. The issue for most of
us is getting a given job done, not necessarily using the latest and least
dependable products. I make 3 or 4 business presentations to business
people here in Southern California every week and all I use for teaching
notes etc is my bn.
Given what I know and have experienced of the competitions p d a, there is
absolutely no way I would ever consider trusting my data and my fate to
their product. I can't afford the crashes and the unnecessary complexity
to say nothing of the awkward hardware.
I recognize that people want the latest and greatest features of main stream
technology, but these take time to implement properly in Braille and speech
products. I'll take slow and steady over fast and buggy any day of the
week.
Alan Holst
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Ring" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "slery" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Alex
Parks" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2007 9:48 AM
Subject: [Braillenote] My general comments
I have used the competition's product for three years. I have finally
concluded that it is too unstable and too risky to use as a note taking
device. I don't know all of the reasons for this although I suspect
some things, but in reality, when you need a device you can rely on,
the Braillenote still wins. I would like to be able to install other
software programs on a Braillenote, and I would like to be able to read
html email without having to do anything special. I would also like to
see improved Microsoft Word support, but when reality imposes itself on
life, one thing is clear. The Braillenote from HumanWare and The
Braille Sense which is sold by GW-Micro are both far more stable than
the competition. And so that we leave no ambiguity here, the
competition is the Pac Mate from Freedom Scientific.
There was a seminar given at the NFB convention that I attended. This
seminar featured a discussion of the new upgrade that the competition
will be making. When it came time for questions and answers, I asked a
certain gentleman (Mr. Mosen) if this new upgrade would address the
instability issues that I have noticed in their product. I explained
that four people, myself and three other co-workers have for all intent
given up on their product because of its inherent unreliability and
instability. Mr. Mosen simply said that others weren't noticing issues
like these.
Although I am getting a strong feeling that HumanWare is moving towards
PDA's and Blue Tooth Braille displays along with third party (Code
Factory) software for screen readers rather than their flagship product,
the Braillenote, I believe this would be somewhat unfortunate. How many
sighted people read books on their PDA's? Those of you who have some
vision, or for anyone who has held a PDA in their hand, the screens are
extremely tiny. How many sighted people would need to listen to Daisy
books on their PDA's? How many sighted people would take extensive
notes in meetings or lectures using the little stylus that comes with a
PDA?
Blind people want and expect things that are simply not offered by
mainstream PDA's. However, there is a price. The market is too small,
and therefore our products cost way too much!
I'll go crawl under my stone now, but I truly hope that HumanWare does
not abandon the Braillenot in favor of mainstream solutions which will
simply not meet the needs of all of their customers.
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