@coboldragon If you mean older ones, and you haven't searched ebay, it may be worth looking. I was pleasantly surprised when I did, at both availability and prices for working units. Of course, there's a good deal of waiting for the right thing to come up, but that's true of every collection. If you mean newer ones, I agree on the expense, but the quality has become a bit depressing, I'm sorry to say. Naturally, there's no accounting for the collector's zeal. One of everything would be nice so long as I don't have to actually use them and put up with the issues.

@techsinger Oh no, I actually use them. And I disagree about quality. My Braille Sense devices have been quite reliable for me for years. Nonetheless, there are definitely devices I would stay away from, I can't deny that. I dodged the Evolve earlier this year. I still think that was a good decision for me and my use cases.

@coboldragon All I can say is that my admiration knows no bounds. The older stuff wasn't terrible. As for the newer, for me (last one was the BS6 and a few weeks with the Elbraille), I was always relieved to get back to Windows/iPhone. As for the evolve, my temptation would be to say it's just settling down/experiencing its teething troubles. Someone here got it, had serious crashes, got them fixed, and is now happy. They just released new software which isn't a huge leap, but is a definite step forward. It might be a different thing in a year than it is now. They do have the models, as we all do, so it's quite possible we'll be seeing bigger steps forward than we did before, though I wouldn't like to place bets on reliability one way or the other. These things are specialized and a specialized programmer can do allot more now than even the most productive person could do even three years ago. It will be interesting to see how it... evolves. I'm still wobbling on the handheld gaming machines, they're far cheaper, but they're two units with the braille display. They're also a good deal easier to fix and the graphics card is good enough to run decent models.

@techsinger I use my BS6 (and BS7 now) with my iPhone. I hate the touch screen interface, and I like the way that the Mantis or the BS7 makes it much more fun and easy to navigate. I do realize that everyone's mileage may very with that; there are plenty of people who like the touch screen, and I certainly applaud them for it, but it's not for me. I absolutely read Braille daily, and often aloud to friends, so I enjoy the ability that a good notetaker gives me to make that an enjoyable experience. And you may be right about the Evolve. I will attend their webinar because I did see that they had some software updates, and I imagine more are on the way. And we absolutely agree on the Elbraille; that was a device that was just never going to realize its potential.

@coboldragon Great to meet another touch screen hater. I don't think I've touched mine in a good three months, all keyboard/braille display,all the time. I have been doing that for years, since I got the iPhone, but it has become far easier with the newer software. Yes, I know everyone loves them, I just don't. I haven't seen, or even heard much about, the BS7, but am pleased to hear it's working well on your end. I'll have to get a look at it at some point and see how much of a move it is from the 6. As for the elbraille... Great concept let down by the execution. Sad, but there it is. One person here is considering an open source note taker, I'm not sure what hardware platform that's relying on, and I think that will be a step forward. There are a huge number of minor and niggling issues I've seen which even a poorly performing LLM could solve, let alone someone who knows the code. Note taker manufacturers don't have the incentive to resolve those issues, they don't effect sales, or at least not perceptibly.

@techsinger @coboldragon Take me to your club please, I hate touch screens with passion, I believe it's the bane of our times.

@menelion @techsinger I completely agree with you. Maybe we should get T-shirts, coffee mugs, and membership cards.

@menelion @coboldragon Oh undoubtedly, but they look good, and nothing else matters, right? They're so futuristic and can actually be cheaper for ongoing development. I mean sure, the consumer, and I do mean the sighted consumer, suffers with them, but we're not here to make the consumer happy, right?

@coboldragon @techsinger I'm starting to use my Mantis more with my phone and find it really much more efficient.

@coboldragon Hahaha. Yes a very expensive hobby but oh so fun!

@baxaphobia Yeah, I started to ponder what the heck I'm doing when I realized I'd added the BrailleNote Evolve event to my calendar, and I was contemplating whether I could justify ordering a BT Braille. I haven't made either of those decisions, but they're wandering around in my brain trying to convince me.

@coboldragon Have you heard if the Evolve has improved since its initial release?

@baxaphobia I know they've had a release 1.1, and I believe that now allows the Evolve to serve as a Braille display for other devices. They also fixed some of the stuff that Jonathan pointed out about Find not working in the Braille application. I don't know if the hardware will be different for the Evolve with a typewriter keyboard; that's one of the things I hope to discover by going to the webinar. If it isn't, I think I'll still pass.

@coboldragon I'm still interested to know more.

@baxaphobia @coboldragon The hardware will not be different. At the NFB Convention, they told me that the battery life would be exactly the same, and the processor would be the same too. Its possible the thermal characteristics might be different, like it might not get hot as quickly, but I'm not sure about that. Speaking of collecting notetakers, I now have the NLS eReader, BT Speak, BT Braille 40, SensePlayer, Orbit Player, Orbit Speak Plus, and Monarch, and I should be getting the BrailleSense 7 very soon, and I will be buying the Orbit Strata 20 Pro when it comes out. So I might have pretty much all the modern ones except for the Evolve and Victor Reader Stream, neither of which I'm really interested in. lol

@emassey0135 If the hardware won't be different, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to go for the Evolve. I'm considering a BT Braille 20. Are you enjoying that device? What do you use that for, and what would you expect to do differently using the BS7? What would your use case be for each? I'm asking because there's a part of me that wants the BT Braille 20 for portability. I do have the NLS EReader, the SensePlayer, the BS7, the Mantis, the BI Braille 40 (I absolutely don't like that one), an old Focus 40 Blue (didn't like that either), and a BrailleNote Touch Plus (which I never liked and is why I jumped to the Braille Sense line).

@coboldragon Yeah. I also suffer from this.