I have played an ElBraille before and the unit itself is very sturdy.

Hello,

I do enjoy using mine. It is no speed demon, but it also gets well over 12 hours of batterylife, can handle a sim card for mobile internet connectivity, and is very stable.

 

TLDR: It is a solid workhorse that will get you through a work/schoolday no matter what you do with plenty of battery to spare in a small footprint that runs the Windows programs you know and love.

 

Now for some negatives. Charging time can take quite a while with the included adapter. It doesn’t actually have a standby feature – but boot times are reasonably quick with the EMMC solid state storage. (Maybe others have this feature and mine is a fluke). My first recommendation, especially if you’re going to be around a huge crowd of people, is disable the silly vibration and beeping you get when powering on. Or at least turn them to low.

 

Yes, they will probably release a new version. Yes, it will probably be much more expensive as those processors, while higher powered, are also significantly more expensive to purchase and yes, you can probably upgrade the current one (at a lesser fee). And you will get worse batterylife as they will consume more power.

 

I really enjoy the keyboard. The space bars placement can take a little time to get used to under the braille display, but it isn’t terrible. All the keys are nicely placed and everything is in reach using a finger. It’s an amazing feeling to have a braille display and computer hanging by a strap from your neck, typing on it in the grocery store. Yes, sure, you can use a separate braille display and phone or laptop, but this is seamless. They’re both together. And that brings me to my last thing.

 

Separating the two of them is a breeze. Actually getting the machine you might think something is broken, but there’s a little magnetically attached lid that, when popped off, hangs by a rubber band of sorts. Underneath this is a tiny micro USB connector that connects the braille display to the elbraille itself and charges the display, if it needs it. You can switch from Bluetooth to USB mode while retaining the connection to the elbraille, too, so there’s no need to separate the two of them unless you know you won’t be needing Windows.

 

I know that was a little more detail than you asked for, but with something this expensive I always like to be thorough and realistic. Any other questions let me know!

 

From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of Justin Mcdevitt
Sent: May 2, 2019 6:28 PM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: ElBraille

 

Hello List-members,

 

I recently received a small inheritance and am considering investing in a braille Notetaker, specifically the ElBraille. In this regard, I understand that Freedom Scientific is introducing a new model in the near future.

If anyone here owns this device, I would appreciate some honest feedback/perspective regarding its ease of use, versatility etc.

I have a Brailliant BI 32 which I have used off/on in conjunction with a laptop. However, I find this set-up cumbersome and I’ve never felt all that comfortable using the Brailliant, as there are times while I am using it, that it will jump to a new page in a Word document where I am taking notes. I am considering selling it.

The ElBraille is more or less like a laptop, using a Perkins keyboard which I appreciate.

I would appreciate any and all responses.

 

Best, Justin