Yes, I own both devices and I agree with most of your post.
I believe the media player in the Sense products is better than the one for
the BN. You can automatically create playlists and you can change the speed
of the book you are listening to.
I also read the html version of the BookSense manual using the browser and I
liked its interface better than KeyWeb. But I can't go online with either
device because I'm using Comcast using a combo router and the wireless
adapter that came with it doesn't support anything but Windows and Mac.
Since there is a usb to parallel adapter, I could emboss with the
BrailleSense Plus but I cannot print with either device because my printer
requires external software.
I traded in my mPower for an Apex because of all the disadvantages of the
BrailleSense Plus you mentioned.
Terri Amateur Radio call sign KF6CA.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Higgins" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2011 3:13 AM
Subject: [Braillenote] The Grass is Always Greener
Dear List,
Having read the flood of emails about the Hims announcement let me add my
voice to those who have spoken with caution: it is easy - very easy - to
get seduced away by deluxe feature sets and what have you, and I speak as
someone who has fallen victim to that in the past. My own view of the
BrailleSense, however, is that it still has serious problems and has
concentrated too much on bells and whistles to the detriment of resolving
these particular serious problems. The braille translation is still way
below par. There is nothing beyond a fairly clumsy implementation of US
braille (they say it does UK Braille but it really doesn't, particularly
in maths); you cannot suppress capital letter signs which might not be a
problem in North america but in the UK we grew up reading without them and
I rather like my Braille to appear as it would in books; you can't read
seamlessly or continuously; you can't customise paragraph boundaries.
Humanware is miles ahead of the competition in terms of Braille
translation, especially if you live outside North america or want to use
it to read or write foreign languages.
Turning to the wordprocessor, the Hims wordprocessor is manifestly
deficient if you want to produce professional quality documents. You have
very little control, relatively speaking, over formatting. as a barrister
here in the UK I very quickly abandoned any idea of producing draft
orders, opinions, pleadings etc. using it because they looked scruffy and
unprofessional. Not very good if you want to do these things on the go.
I also found the scenario where you are reading one document and writing
another where you had to keep activating read only mode in the
wordprocessor very ungainly as compared with switching between the
wordprocessor and the book reader as we do with humanware devices.
Hims' processor speed on the brailleSense Plus is very, very slow. It is
noticeable when one takes notes quickly that it is very swift to fall
behind. I remember taking a note of judgment with it once and I had to
wait for nearly five minutes after I had finished for it to catch up with
me. I have to say that I am therefore sceptical about how it will manage
with PDF files. It already takes a great deal of time to open long
documents, and I mean documents of 500 or more pages, and PDF files will
probably be of a bigger file size than those more often than not.
The qwerty interface on the BrailleSense is very clumsily implimented.
The mannual is even more clumsily written. The qwerty interface treats
one line of text and one length of the Braille display as synonymous,
making for a rather cumbersome experience when reading using the arrow
keys. It's very difficult, in other words, to flick through.
These are just some of the problems I experienced. I know there are
people who will be very excited by these new features Hims have added, but
all this BrailleNote is doomed stuff assumes that we all want the bells
and whistles. Personally, I want a machine I can use efficiently in court.
The slim, light Apex fits the bill perfectly and its Braille translation
is second to none. The web browser is working well, I like text
adventures and the planner and database applications also come in useful.
I don't really care about an awful lot else. If I want to do something
awfully complicated I'll wait until I'm in front of my PC; if I want to
tweet, read an unprotected PDF or mess around on Facebook on the go I'll
use my iPhone. PDF support might be useful I suppose but the reality is
that most useful PDFs from my point of view consist entirely of images and
in that connection, Hims don't take you any further forward. If I had one
wish, I would wish that Humanware would make the Apex truly compatible
with portable printers such as the Pentax Pocketjet.
I do support Techies' requests to have the SDK. some really useful talent
could be unlocked there. At the same time, however, I hope techies'
appreciate that some of us when it comes to notetakers are of but simple
tastes and that thing ssuch as paragraph boundaries matter so much more to
us than an application to polish your shoes.
Best,
Mark Higgins
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