Classifieds: MPower QWERTy 32 $250; Blaze EZ $200 for sale: Pay through Paypal
Braillenote MPower QT: keysoft version 7.5: Price: $250 including shipping
This is a Humanware notetaker, the one before the Apex. As you will see, this was not ever upgraded to the latest version. I bought it used in late 2012. The braille display is excellent. You will be able to use many of the features. I have put a playlist on it and played music, have read documents and books and written and edited on it, though I will warn that directories and large lists of books can be slow to load. I have used it with brltty on my Mac and on linux using a usb-to-serial cable or just serial cable where the computer had a serial port, have read mail and sent mail though it may have trouble with larger emails. The only thing that will not benefit you much is the Internet capability. The wifi option probably will not work for you on most wifi network setups but it can be used on Internet. However, very few websites can actually be loaded and used productively. But this is a very sturdy unit and works beautifully as long as you understand its limitations. The sd card slot only takes really small capacity sd cards but you can use an sd card reader in a usb port for sdhc cards. I usually use it with a thumb drive and will throw in a 16gb thumb drive for it. I have used a 128gb thumb drive with it. It comes with its original case which is an excellent one. Also included are a US dictionary on a compact flash card,, a pcmcia card, a compact flash card, serial cable, usb-to-serial cable, and an ethernet adapter with also an standard ethernet cable. Battery is working fine; Batteries Plus can put new batteries in the unit when needed. When I got the unit the battery was dead, and on consulting with the seller we decided that somehow the on/off switch had been pushed on so I will do my best to find a way to keep the switch from turning on during transport. Understand that this unit is no longer at all supported by Humanware. Again, the greatest strength of this unit is the really good braille; I hate to throw out or leave sitting unused something with such good braille! . I also can send a braille user guide which is several volumes and bound with looseleaf rings. This is not a professional copy but was just done with Index braille. User guide will be sent separately by free matter for the blind; I printed it originally for my specific use. The manual/user guide is loaded on the braillenote itself. The manual and command summary for keysoft version 7.5 are located in text and pdf formats at
http://support.humanware.com/en-usa/support/other_products/braillenote/manual
The file name doesn't say MPower but the first page does say that. It is the one that says braillenote7.5qt.
Blaze EZ: Price: $200
The Blaze EZ is a Daisy player from HIMS. This was the first of two players, with the Blaze ET being the later one. The Blaze EZ has quite a few features: plays music and other media files, downloads and plays podcasts and NLS BARD books and Daisy Online books, has a radio, etc. It can be used for ocr. It is basically the same kind of player as the Victor Reader Stream. I bought this when the Blaze Ez first came out and used it quite a bit but then bought the Blaze ET and quit using the EZ as much. Everything works fine but of course I don't know when the battery will have to be replaced. Occasionally it gets stuck in a download and has to be reset but I think that is a general problem and not specific to this unit. Also if you add items to your sd card and reinsert the card into your Blaze EZ, usually it will scan automatically but sometimes I find I have to change from directory mode to content mode to get the rescan to occur; again I think this is a general problem and not one with this unit. This comes with the Executive Products case, charger and usb cable. Information and user guide are at
https://hims-inc.com/blaze-series/
Also I have a copy of the user guide, not done professionally, in braille and the quick start guide that initially came with it. I will send these for no extra charge separately from the Blaze EZ itself if requested.
Contact information
cahomiak@gmail.com
Category: Notetakers/PDAs