active braille or braille sense u2

Hello!

I have only seen a U2, can you send a link just so I can look at it and watch their differences??

Have you used any devices before your thoughts of gettning another?

Best regards Thomas

it does bluetooth well and has many neat features.
the main bad points for me are extreme slowness and poor performance on wireless lan.
using the u2 with the i-device can overcome this.
the u2 operating system is based on windows 6 which is really old in this day of rapid change.
i forget which chip u2 is based on but it is kind of behind the times.
i think thats why it is so slow over wireless lan--the poor old chip cannot handle modern data encryption fast enough.
i am just guessing on that, but it is definitely pitiful on my wifi.
if you can find a display based on a faster chip i would be strongly inclined to choose it.
i would try to find the benchmark numbers for each chip, then compare the features list of each display.
The u2 is the only display I have used.

The BrailleSense by Hims Inc comes with many features, see below:
Social Networking and WiFi
* Twitter
* Facebook
* Google Talk
* YouTube
* Connect to A WiFi Network, with No Disks Or Cards Required

Web Browsing
* Regular Web Browser
* Quick Browser to Speed Up The Web
* Google Search

Navigation
* Google Maps

Protection
* Comes with A Case That Protects The BrailleSense From Harm
* Password Protection

Media
* FM Radio
* Daisy Player

Games
Comes with fun games to play...
There's a lot you can use the ghrlSense for, and almost every blind person I talk to has one.

Thank you so much for the link.

I have been thinking about an answer, and here are my thoughts. First of all I must say, that it wasn't easy for me to find any user manual for the Active braille. In fact I didn't find one, so it is based on all other data I was able to find:

I certainly like the idea of the active braille moving along while you are reading, and I also love the ability to transfer text to the device via a card. I haven't seen one, so I can't comment on anything regarding how it operates, but what annoyed me personally very much was when it was described in the Youtube-movie that it beeps a lot. I hope this can be changed in settings, but since I couldn't find a manual, I hope other users can correct me.

Now for the braille sende U2:

Yes, the hardware is not new, and yes it operates on an older operativ system. But as I understand it, so does other devices like the braillenote from Humanware.

As other's have mentioned the braillesense U2 has a lot of features. Some of them you might need, and others never at all. I myself tried a U2, comming from a braille display only, and I instantly fell in love with the word processor, the file manager and also the media player, just to name a few things. What I especially love about this device is the terminal clipboard. You can type some text in grade 2 braille and send it to your iOS-device or your computer, and get it translated to uncontracted braille. For me this speed things up a lot, because I was able to copy text out of written documents and send them to other contacts without having to edit anything in the iOS screen. Please note: I have had some small issues regarding this feature, but I think I have tracked it down to the contraction tabel that is used in the language I use on the display, and that this does a difference for the devices, during the translation process.

Oh, and another point, that I almost forgot: Be careful that your display can translate documents into languages you read. I have seen a display that did much of what the active braille can do, but it didn't offer contracted braille support for my native language, so if I copied a document on to it, I could only read it in uncontracted braille, and that was a no go for me.

If you have an iPad or an iPhone use the webbrowser on that instead of the buildin. No slamming at all, but the browser is not new anymore, and it can not handle some pages, due to the technologies used on them, so I haven't used it all that much.

The keyboard and reading keys are not very noisy, in fact I couldn't hear a key press when I read a text myself. The keyboard (on the U2 32 display) is amazing, my hands couldn't fit the U2-mini.

Lastly you might think, why does he like so many of the build in apps if he has an iPhone/iPad? I love the media player etc. because it saves battery on my phone, so I can use it for browsing the internet, texting friends or whatever I like still while enjoying books and music on the U2.

So my advice for you would be the following:

• Think very hard about what features you actually need regarding a braille display, and what your gols are. If you know that you never ever will use the device for anything else than notetaking and reading, check if your language is supported both for importing files that are and are not specificb braille documents, so you won't have to convert it to something else before reading it.
• Think in longer terms. Would like to be able to use any build in app on the U2 in the future,or do you use other devices for all these tasks?
• If possible try to get your hands on both the devicesbefore buying one or the other.

Hope my thoughts helped you a little.

Please let us know wich device you will purchase at the end.

Best regards Thomas

Hello.
The u2 does have support for the connecting of a flash drive, and also has support for Dropbox. I mention Dropbox because this access allows me to connect the u2 to my Dropbox and copy files directly from there to the u2. I can't speak to the braille cell specifications of the Active Braille, as I've only looked at the device a couple of times at conventions and CSUN, but the u2 also comes with a nialon cover which can be placed over the braille display to help prevent dirt and other unwanted things from getting in the display itself. It doesn't always work if your fingers are not sensitive enough to read the braille through it, but I started using the cover about a year ago, and love it. It did take a bit of getting used to, but was well worth it. As for the Active braille, you do get 8 more cells of braille than what you will get with the u2, but another thing is to consider what type of support is available in your country for each device. In North America, Triomph Technologies supports the Active Braille, while the HIMS Texas based office does support for the u2. Of course, in Europe,
Handy Tec based in Germany would have support for the Active Braille. That said, I believe the Active Braille is priced significantly higher than the u2, which is also probably why it's not more wide spread. I'm sorry I don't have a clear answer for you, no one should, as these things are based purely on personal preference.