Category: Safe Haven
Hi All, What is your notetkaer of choice at present? Mine is the BrailleNote. Woot! But am interested to see what you all have. I have the BrailleNote without Keysoft 5.1 yet, but I will ahve it soon, double woot! And I have the 18-cell display and braille keyboard. Bye for now!
Caitlin
I have a bbraille n speak but my counselor said maybe next year that I can get a braille lite or a braille note because I have used both of those and I love the braille display!
Troy
Well, i have a Type Lite, and its awesome! I love the 40 cell display, the computer keyboard instead of a Braille keyboard, and best of all, the 12 mb of flash and 455 pages of ram! Woo hoo!
I had a BNS 2000 until my rehab bought me a Braille Lite M20. Later on I traded in the BNS for a Pacmate, which is cool! I still have the Braille Lite though and use both a great deal, depending on what I'm doing.
can you give me your braille lite? lol. Well I have a bns (braille 'n speak 200) and would like to have a braille lite but they got up its price... since about 4 years when I bought the bns it was $1500 and now they are like five thousand bucks. So, the braille lites were $5000, and now I don't know how much they are but they raised the price, angry moneymakers!
braille 'n speak 2000 is what I ment to say
Pacmate all the way. I love it! I consider it my very own laptop :-D even though the ammount of storage on the hard drive isn't too big. I'm hoping to get some vcards (things you store information on for the pacmate instead of using it's memory.) before going back to school. It has all the programs I use here on my desk top and it even has MSN Messenger, IE and other goodies to use.
Alll notetakers are intriguing ot me. I've only fooled with Brailleand Speaks, BrailleLytes and BrailleNotes, but I'd love to see Pac Mates, Type Lytes, and everything else out there.
Caitlin
yeah, I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate bns! braille notes rock! I saw a pack-mate once...and I haven't seen a type light, or a type and speek...there are hundreds of bagillions of trillions of note takers out there...
I considered the packmate at one time but the lack of memmmory is what turned me away.
Troy
I didn't know PacMates had limited memory? Interesting. I'd love to just have a long time to tinker away with every notetaker in the world lol!
Caitlin
Yo people with the PMs, you can now buy those little hard drives on keychains and stuff and use them!! I want one for Christmas, and I've heard they're fairly large. Although maybe expensive. *red face*
Anyways, as soon as the Pacmate gets spanish language support I will either put the Braille Lite in the closet for backup or sell it, dunno which yet.
Yeah, the packmate only has 1 gig I believe, not enough for me. I think I have played with every notetaker out there accept for the ones that have computer keybords because they are the same thing only one has a braille keybord and the other one has a computer keybord.
Troy
Yeah I know what you're talking about. One of my friends showed me, it looks like the size of a small wistle.
Hey,
I've messed around with the BrailleLite, BraileN'Speake, BrailleNote, Packmate, and TypeN'Speak.
I prefer the BrailleNote over anything, not so much for the speech, but the braille display, and the amount it can hold.
Take care,
Cort
I have flash cards for my BN and they work really well. I can keep books, worksheets and texts for school, and play files on them and everything. And when i get the MP3 player, music!
Caitlin
I love braille displays! I also have the external disk drive that fs sells.
Troy
Yeah, those small compactflash things are cool, but u know what gets me? Freedomscientific's idea to sell propriatary cables that easily break instead of allowing their devices to connect with something as simple as a USB port. Like the cable to the external disk drive for example. The pins in that thing r so small and so easy to bend beyond repare, that it happens to me at least once every couple of months. I'm glad that I am fortunate enough to have a sighted person around to fix the pins for me. But that's not even the worst part. The worst part is that FS charges you $25 for a cable that they paid less than a dollar to make. By making it so easily breakable, it's so obvious that they are just money hungry. But such is life in the corprit world I guess. I have used many forms of the braille lite including the 18-640, 18, 2000, and most recently the m20. I think my next notetaker, whenever that will be, is going to be a braille note.
I've used a Braille 'n Speak and then a Braille Lite for school, but when I was introduced to a Braille Note several years ago, I loved it! *smiles* I just recently saved up and bought a used one to use mainly for college, because TCB would rather give me a Braille 'n Speak. I love using the Braille Note because it has clearer speech, is easy to learn to use (I got to learn a lot of stuff just by listening to and messing with it on the first day), and apparently (although I have yet to try it) it is easier to transfer/read files from it to a regular computer and vis versa.? *smiles* With the Braille 'n Speak/Lite, I never found out how to hook it up to a computer, and when I'd want to read files from one to the other, I'd always have to edit the files after I moved and opened them on disk. But I like that the Braille Note already explains how to transfer and all that stuff in the manual. *smiles*
Leilani
I whish they'd do away with pin connectors as I'm always afraid I'm going to break them. What doesn't make sence to me is that they did away with the pin ports on their units because of possible breaking, but they still have their pin connectors. Now wouldn't it make more sence to change both?
Troy
Pins are so annoying, but it's not just pins that break! I got disk drives for the BrailleNote, the external ones, and I broke them right and left, for no apparent reason! I'd be gentle, but the card woudl somehow get bent, or the disk drive would swallow a disk and not eject it, or it wouldn't work for various other reasons. Now I just use flash cards.
Caitlin
Ugh I hate pins!!! You know those little round serial connectors for the older units from FS? I broke those all the time cause they never quite fit no matter how I aligned them!!! Yurgh. I hate the fact I can't connect my braile lite to my computer anymore, it feels weird somehow, even though I do have a flash drive for the computer.
Whoever invented pins is a fool. Lol jk. But seriously, they're so annoying. Thank gosh for infrared ports! Woot!
Caitlin
I used to have a Braille n Speak and Braille Lite, but I got my Braille Note last year and I love it. I'm addicted to the book reader and I use the planner a lot too. I have a Braille Note and Voice Note comunity on Live Journal so please join if you want to discuss these wonderfull little machines.
And speaking of little machines, has anyone seen a Braille Note Pk yet? It sounded really cool when i read about it.
I did and they're so tiny!!!! I want one but waaaay too expensive. sad
Posting back here again. *smile* I now have a Braille 'n Speak Scholar in addition to my BrailleNote. I got the Scholar a little after the begining of this year because I heard that it had a graphing calculator. The cool thing is that it's built in and it also has where you can convert measurements without memorizing the actual problems for them. So I have the scholar mainly for school use and the BrailleNote for home and/or travel and as a Braille display for my computer. Both have their own advantages and disadvantages, but yeah.
I have both a BrailleNote and a Braille Lite. I use my BrailleNote for everything exept math. It can store even more than those Type Lites. My Braille Lite is pretty reliable--I can use it for math, as I said earlier. TTFN. TWKAV.
Hey!!
I currently use a voicenote w/ keysoft 5.1, but used a bns 2000 before that and am now considering either getting a voicenote MPower or a pac mate. I have a pac mate Braille display and love it and would really like to use it with a notetaker.
PacMate 4.0 was released some time ago. To find out more, go to Freedom Scientific's Web site.
Freedom Scientific Home
I wonder if Braille 'n Speaks are becoming obsolete. I have a BNS 2000 but heard recently that older versions are being discontinued and that if you have one and need service you won't be able to get new parts. So I'm wondering if that could happen to the 2000 too. I should probably think about the BrailleNote or something like that.
I have a note taker, keysoft version 7, braille display and braille keyboard. I love it!
My counsilor is going to look at getting me a Pack Mate. I like the laptop style keyboard, the Eloquence speech, and the Braille display that can be attached to it. I've seen a Braille Note PK. It's cute.really small,
I have a pacmate. It's okay, I think. I used to have a braille lite.
My notetaker is my hand, the pen, and of course the notebook filled with writings and scribled equations. Nah, i don't enjoy this, i don't have money to buy those electronic gadgets.
You can always get a used one.
Well, You could also have your visual services department get you a note taker, if you have such services.
I used to use the braille lites 2000 and millenium 20. I had to give those back to my old school and college when I left, but on Monday, I borrowed a voice note which is about 4 years old or something from the college I'm at now.
I use a braille-note BT 5.1. I use to use a m.power, but I gave it up, because I was too nice. Lol! I shouldn't have.
I have a BrailleNote 32 and really like, but it still doesn't do away with the usefulness of the slate and stylus and a piece of paper.
I honestly probably use the slate more often than anything, just because I always have it with me and it never dies or breaks.
Anyway, just my two cents worth.
James K
My notetaker that I use is a BrailleNote. It has a 32-cell braille display with a braille keyboard.
i use a braillenote MPower BT32. it's okay for things like school work etc. however, i'm getting more and more interested in the pac mate omni. but my local authority bought me my braillenote so i don't think they are gonna pay £4000 for a pac mate omni. but with netbooks becoming more and more popular, this could be the beginning of the end of the notetaker.
I've got an old pacmate 4.1 tat I bought second hand a couple of month ago. it doesn't have a braille display, but I might get one for it in the future and will probably upgrade the pacmate to omni anyway.
I've used a BNS, BNS2000, Braille lite 18, Braille Note, and right now I have my Braille Plus. I love that little thing for reading books. It doesn't switch voices when it reads, but somehow it does them real well when I have it set to just read from start to finish.
I just use a laptop. The PAC Mate can go and ... well, mine's pretty much stuffed, and Freedom Scientific wants $325 to fix the blasted thing. Grrrrr.
I am the odd one. I have a Type 'n Speak. Services for the Blind baught it for me when I was getting my GED.
A few years ago I saw the Braille note. I liked it! When I can come up with the funds, I am going to get one.
my note taker for when i need it is my asus 1000he :). i really think note takers will be a thing of the past :).
I am happy to anounce that I am a proud owner of a Pac Mate omni qx 400 and I love, love, love! it!
I'm looking at using either a voice sence, braille + or just using a mobile phone to doo what I needed. the phone and screen reader is cheeper but I'd need to find programs and such but i've already got the mobile speek liscence and a smartphone but I don't think I could ever use this one as a note taker.
Wow, this topic is old!
Back when I first posted I guess I was using a type lite. Anyway, I've also used a Braille Lite 40, Braille Plus, and now have a Braille Note with keysoft 8.
I now use an mPower 7.5 build 29
I'm currently using a BrailleNote apex, but I still have my Braille lite 2000 and my Braille lite 40. I also have a BraillenSpeak, but it kind of broke so I don't use it.
I have an old braille lite but it works great.