Hi Diane: Good question. I think my most important priorities were durability and connectivity. With the price of note takers being about the same between all of the venders, I had to decide what features were most important to me. Further, I needed to decide if I really needed refreshable Braille.
I chose my VN because it seemed much more solid then the competition. I mean literally stronger and better built. I travel a lot and back when I was making that decision, my travel schedule was even worse. I needed to know that the note taker (PC Cerigate), would take the abuse in my carry-on and be ready to work when I was. At the time, I worked in warehousing automation and needed something that could take the extremes in work environment demanded by my job. I worked in environments from comfortable office to 100 degree warehouse and critically needed my note taker in both places. And if (God forbid), I were to drop the unit, I needed to know that it wouldn't literally go to pieces. As far as connectivity, I was vastly disappointed in the PC connectivity offered by the competition. You had to go through some sort of terminal program and X-modem if you wanted to move your files from one to the other and it became almost unworkable. The VN's Active Sync and ability to transfer memory cards from one to another seemed, to me, to be much more sensible. Finally, I decided that my Braille skills were not strong enough to require refreshable Braille. I was and continue to be a very strong audio learner and JAWS user and for the difference in price, I'd rather spend the money on a small portable embosser. Hope this helps and was not too long Sincerely Jeff Molzow [EMAIL PROTECTED]
