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Hello Bernard,
Tuesday, September 30, 2003, 10:46:13 AM, you wrote:
BD> When making a comparison between the Alphasmart and Voicemate, I think
BD> price really needs to be taken into consideration: the Alphasmart is
BD> around £200, the Voicemate around £2,000. The user will still need a
BD> computer system and a range of software and peripherals, including
BD> Jaws (itself a rather expensive piece of software). Rather than spend
BD> that much on what is basically a word-processor, it might be more
BD> sensible to by a light-weight notebook (e.g., the Writer c1000m from
BD> Microlink or a similar machine; a number are coming onto the market for
BD> around £1,500) which will serve as a platform for several tasks rather
BD> than one. It is a compromise solution, but in general we are dealing
BD> with a finite amount of money.
Let me just explain some of the problems of using a laptop machine
in a lecture/note taking environment. The main reasons people go
for the Voice Note, Braille Note, Pacmate, Braille and Speak et al
are because of their compact size, and their speed, especially in
getting the unit going and shutting it down, and the fact that the
unit can be powered on/off and you are ending up at the same place
every time. Furthermore, a standard laptop will have a battery life
of around 2 hours, and even less with speech, whereas a Braillenote
or equivalent note taker will have a battery life of around 20
hours.
Furthermore, those of us who can read braille and have a braille
display notetaker can work around using speech for their note
taking needs, because we can just turn off the speech and rely on
the braille. On a laptop, while this is possible, you will also
need to carry around a separate braille display unit, which will
actually cost in the region of £2,000. Some of these will run off
batteries, but quite a few still will need a mains supply.
I am neither advocating one solution or another; however, I have
gone down both routes and had gone for a braille notetaker due to
the above facts plus its size/weight. If a student has already
tried a laptop with speech and found it problematic, I doubt he will
want a smaller laptop machine as in my opinion anyway it really
doesn't solve many problems.
As for the price, I really think the voice notes could come down a
lot in price, and have no idea why they are so expensive with no
braille display. To this end, I have seen cheaper speech only
notetakers on the market made by Artic Technologies and by Robotron.
I have no idea how good these are, though, as I wanted braille
output.
Andrew.
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Best regards,
Andrew Hodgson, Bromyard, Herefordshire, UK.
mailto:[log in to unmask]
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