@TheQuinbox@dragonscave.space
Software engineer working at Pneuma Solutions by day, prolific open-source contributor, wannabe musician, and lego builder by night. Constant reader. Dragonscave.space moderator. Blind, but I’ve seen more than most. Snarky and opinionated, but friendly by default and always willing to help. DMs open. Views my own. Abolish ICE.
One thing I will say about the evolve is how unexpectedly intuitive the braille keyboard is for doing Windows things. Not every single thing, I have a tool that uses a global hotkey involving the backslash key and I just can't do that on the evolve, but doing things like windows + d, windows + r, alt + tab, etc. feel way more intuitive than I expected them to. The modifier keys are pretty well done.
The BrailleNote evolve has two pretty good stereo microphones. For some reason the stereo field on them is flipped, so talking into the one at the top left corner of the device sounds like you're on the right and vice versa, and you do have to gain them up a teeny bit to account for the extra height normally provided to microphones on a laptop screen, at least if you're using it on your lap like I do, but they sound very good. Something to keep in mind is that I have been told by my girlfriend and multiple friends that when I use the Braille keyboard, it sounds like I'm typing on their faces. To be fair, this was using TeamTalk with no noise reduction, so it would probably be less noticeable in certain apps, but something to be aware of.
My initial impressions of the BrailleNote evolve as a product still aren't 100% glowing, but the fact that HumanWare support helped me get my braille back (by reinstalling Windows), on a weekend, especially the weekend of July 4th, says something incredibly positive about their support team. That's something you don't get many places. The evolve's going through OOBE again over there.