Hi Jim,
I hope fervently that PDI does not agree with your attitude. The BN
users--or I should say, the former BN users--who are now on the PACMate list
did exactly what you are telling us to do now just to get us to shut up. They
sold their BN and got a PAC Mate. The difference between them and those who,
like me, are still hoping to see the BrailleNote keep pace, is that--we are
still hoping, while they decided not to and just switched. What PDI and users
like you, Jim, should do is not to tell more users to switch or treat those who
have as though they made the wrong decision, but to show us that in time, we
will shake off the feeling of wanting to switch because the BrailleNote is
still keeping abreast.
Stop challenging BrailleNote users to sell their BrailleNote and get a
PACMate because if it is not yet obvious to you, this is counterproductive for
PDI. Instead, use your fingers to type a post for PDI, urging them to get
their act together and find better ways of facing the competition and prevent
their customers from taking the expensive leap of getting a PM. This is not
about ranting. This is about telling PDI that we are willing to hang on to our
BrailleNotes, but not forever. I'm tired of reading posts from Jonathan Mosen
or whoever assuring us that this and that request will be taken into
consideration for a future upgrade. Anyone can say that, and who in his right
mind will say otherwise? But I want to see action.
I do not want to see a version 5.2 with just one KeySoft application being
improved and the long-standing urgent problems linger. 5.0 was released in
late August 2003, 5.1 was released in March 2004. I am disappointed to see
that in about seven months time during which PDI was expected to develop an
upgrade, we got only a new planner system and a word count feature that only
solves the inconvenience of using the spell checker to get the number of
words--I was able to check the number of sentences and lines with my
BrailleLite. Meanwhile, in the same amount of time, other PDA users got more
speed and more memory, and discovered more third-party applications that work
well with their product.
We waited longer for 5.0 and got a bit more, but I still feel it was a
half-baked upgrade. We got a stopwatch that could not be used as a countdown
timer. We got a media player that plays only MP3 files with certain
limitations to sample rates. We got a better translator that does not agree
with the speech and so words that appear right in Braille are translated
incorrectly to text and read wrong with speech. We got KeySync but it only
works for contacts and calendar, not email, and still the speed of
synchronization or the choking on large files was not addressed. Add to that
the lingering problems with KeyMail and KeyWeb, and the File Manager that lacks
some useful functions that Richard posted a rehash of a suggestion that I have
seen from other users before but sadly, still no response--concrete
response--from PDI.
Like I said, they are way too slow in playing catch-up. And with a post
like yours, users are beginning to think that PDI will never catch up so you
are advising us to shut up and get a PACMate. Do you realize that in your
desire to defend the BrailleNote, the faster you are causing it to plunge
downhill?
Another misinformation about the PACMate. You do not lose data as soon as
the battery goes flat. The Lithium Polymer battery used by newer PM units, or
the Lithium Ion used on the version 1.xx units, will guarantee that if the
battery goes flat, you will retain your data in 72 hours--that's three days. I
do not suppose any wise user will wait for three days before charging the
battery. You say, "What if I'm out of town and forgot my charger?" As it is
obvious, that's user error and irresponsibility, not the product's fault.
PM users also save files to cf cards and they do not lose these files when
the batteries go flat, even if the cards are plugged in. With the BrailleNote,
you may lose the files in your cf card if you had been working on a large file
saved to a cf card. The problem with large files getting truncated or wiped
clean--which I still experience with 5.1 and .rtf files--is not linked to where
you have the file; whether it's in the Flash Disk or compact flash card, you
can still lose it. Like I said in my other post, if you overwrite your bacup
of the email database with one you did not know was already corrupted, you'll
lose that, too, even if it's on the cf card.
No, I did not write those last two paragraphs merely to compare the PM and
the BN. My purpose? To show you and PDI that you cannot claim the BrailleNote
is still leading just because of the battery and losing of data, since this is
no longer an urgent issue with the PACMate. So stop focusing on what you think
the competition cannot do and hail that the BrailleNote can do that. Start
looking on what the BrailleNote cannot do, and that the competition can, and do
something about it, and please, at least for our money's worth, do it fast
while we're still holding on to our BrailleNotes.
Sincerely,
Kirstyn
