Category: accessible Devices
I have a choice between the braille sense and the braille note. I'm interested in hearing your oppinions on this matter. I would like your help to decide which notetaker I should get.
Um, never mind. I just found out that the braille sense can't play audio profiles. I no longer need your help. I've decided to get the braille note mPower.
Hello!
I have an M-power myself and I haven't been able to play the audio profiles very well. It is possible that I can play some of them but not all of them. I think both notetakers are good choices though. It really depends on what you need to do with them. I wish I had one of each so I could really evaluate which one is better. If you are embossing documents, the Braille Sense can interface with the printer port on the embosser especially the Enabling Technologies Embossers. The M-power no longer has the LPT printer port but has at least three USB ports. Bluetooth is built into the M-power where one must get an accessory to use bluetooth on the Braille Sense. On the other hand, the built in digital display can be useful to some people which is available on the Braille Sense. The stereo speakers might be nice as well. The M-power doesn't have stereo speakers but works well with headphones. I'm on both lists and there doesn't seem to be much complaint with the Braille Sense. They seem to have a good support system with GW Micro. My M-power has served me well though and it works fine on the zone. One can get a qwerty keyboard for the M-power if one wishes but this is not available for the Braille Sense unless one uses an external USB qwerty keyboard. The Braille Sense has a removable battery by the user so one can have more than one battery to use if one wishes to get an extra one. One must send the M-power back to the support center to have a battery replaced. The M-power can use SD cards as well as compact flash cards where the Braille Sense uses compact flash cards only if I understand what I read correctly. I think both units are excellent compeditive products.
Jim
I haver a voicenote empire and love it. But I would like to download books onto it and know it can be done. But I have some questions. Do I need special equipment? Do the books need to be only a certain length? Any information will be helpful. You may know something I haven't though of. Thanks Donna
Jim, nice comparison! wow!!! excellent.
I like both of these products. I saw the Braille Sense Plus at the NFB convention and I thought that it was totally neat! I have a BrailleNote mPower.
the braille sense plus has both bluetooth and wireless built in, plus ethernet. it also has both compact flash and sd card slots. It has 8 gb built in flash memory. so has been upgraded a lot since the original braille sense.
Sorry for asking a stupid question, but what is the Braille Sense? This is the first I've heard of it.
The Braille Sense is made by a company called GW Micro. Go to gwmicro.com and you can find out more information.
GW micro do not make the braille sense. it's made by a korean company called Hims, and is sold in North America by GW micro, and by Force ten co in the UK. if you go to www.braillesense.com you will find out the most information.
I have a braillenote mpower and I love it! I've heard of the braille sense but I don't like the fact that it has a visual display built in. I use my braillenote for keeping private documents and I wouldn't want somebody reading over my shoulder while i'm writing in my journal or updating my bank info.
The lcd display is turned off by default, and you the user can decide when and if it's ever turned on.
hello all my state got me the sense. I haven't gotting it yet but it is in and I can't wait to see I hope it is the sense plus but I don't know yet. this came in this week. so happy it is in before school starts. Erica
I can see advantages of the visual display. I don't think the display is particularly large from what I remember. If you wanted to share info with someone, you could just turn on the display, and if you didn't want speech on at all, you could both look at the same information. Might be nice in meetings.
Lou
What about the braille plus? I don't have it, so any input would be helpfull
The Braille Plus is cool. It has a lot of storage space, which other notetakers don't have, so it was nice for keeping my music on. It's also very portable. Other notetakers are too, but not to the extent that this is. This is the equivalent of a sighted person using a palm pilot. Also, it runs under Linux, but don't let that scare you. I didn't even know it did until someone told me. There are a couple things I don't like about it, such as there's no command to get a links list on the internet and other little things like that, but since they're constantly coming out with updates, which are free to download, I'm sure it'll just keep getting better.
Well, I love the Braille Plus. It does so much, and is so small. The web browser works fairly well, and I've been able to do some things with it that I couldn't do as easily with Windows and Internet Explorer. I agree that the links list would be really nice to have. The fact you can download books from NLS into a 30 or 40 gb hard drive depending on when you bought the unit is just awesome. I'cve read more in the last four months than I have in the last five years for pleasure.
Lou
As to the question about downloading books on the BrailleNote, yes, you can.There are a few sites you can do this on. I do admit, if you have a computer,you ma like downloading books for the BrailleNote better, but to each his own. The two sites are: http://www.loc.gov/nls/braille and http://www.bookshare.org. Web Braille (this is the first site,) is free. All you have to do is call NLS, (the National Library Service), and tell them you want an account with Web Braille, and they'll get you all set up. Bookshare costs, and the books aren't always the greatest quality, since they're scanned in by people from the Bookshare coNo, you don't need any special software to read these books. If you have any mopore questions, just PM me.
well, I would really pick the braille sense + over the braille note mpower and the braille + over the sense +
lets face it, the braille note just can't compete anymore, it has only 128 mb of onboard memory. It doesn't have enough ram to truely take advantage of some of its features like many dazy books don't open and the ones that do open are quite slugish. Doing things like saveing place markers will moste likely crash the unit. the internet seems slower on the m power vs the braille sense plus as well. oh yeh, both the braille sense + and the braille+ produce better quality recordings and have more onboard space for them.
Lastly, the m power is the only one out of the 3 that doesn't have built in wireless, to get wireless you need to buy a card.
Hmm, that is interesting. I bet humanware is working on a different braillenote product or another update to the Mpower. It's about time for them to put out a new notetaker anyway. The Mpower came out about three years ago. It's time, and i'm sure they're working on it. I bet it isn't easy trying to keep up with the demands of consumers. It'll come.
I seen both and I prefer the braille sense. I know it's wider because it's got a longer line of braille cells, but I just think it's easier to use. You've also got the arrow keys, which you don't have with the braille note, unless you get the other keyboard with it.