BrailleNote Touch review.

The BrailleNote Touch from Humanware is a big step for the note taker.

Introduction

When I was 15 years old, I was introduced to a firm called Humanware.
At that stage, even though note takers had been around since the late 90’s, it was my first time getting one. I remember the excitement I felt unpacking what was then the MPower.

What is it?

A note taker, is a device designed for the blind, it may come with a braille display comprising 18 or 32 cells of braille, and it may have speech or not.

Today’s note takers let you do everything from browse the web, to document creation.

The power of KeySoft

All BrailleNotes from the classic run on KeySoft, Humanwares own in house OS, fast forward to 2017, and I’m yet to find a smoother UI, my favorite feature is being able to jump by first letter navigation in apps, w for keyword, the built-in word processor etc.

In my view the word processor in the Touch is as good, if not better than Microsoft Office.
Since my time using note takers, I’ve yet to come across another note taker whose word processor is as good as Office on the PC.

What’s so special about the Braille note Touch?

Last year at CSUN Humanware launched the Braille Note Touch, the first braille tablet.
Whilst it functions like a note taker for the most part, you can take it out of it’s case and use it as a tablet, as it runs Android. The included keyboard case also works well.

Hello Android, 4.4

Some people in the blindness community have expressed some concerns that the Touch is running an older version of Android, from my talks with Human ware I can assure you that the firm will continue to bring out updates for the product.
In the latest Keysoft firmware, version 4.0.

at the time of writing, major improvements have been introduced, such as the ability to update apps 1 at a time rather than the whole OS.

So, it may seem that the Touch is behind, but Humanware are bringing the code over from other versions of Android such as 5.0.

Conclusion

With the true and tested KeySoft the best User interface in the business, awesome support, and fantastic build quality the Braille Note Touches future looks bright.

“The future is so close you can touch it“.