[BRLTTY] Braille display hardware recommendations

[Jason White]

For the third time in my life, I'm contemplating entering the market for a new
braille display. I'm not in a hurry. Hardware recommendations from
participants in this mailing list would be most welcome and much appreciated.
I've recently had an opportunity to benefit from demonstrations of several
displays, but, in order not to bias the discussion here, perhaps it would be
better if I were to introduce my own observations after reading comments from
others.

I'm considering another 40-cell display. My current display (Baum SuperVario
40, as sold by HumanWare  around 2005) is excellent. However, it lacks a
braille keyboard, which would be desirable for working with modern operating
systems and applications, particularly on mobile devices. In addition, I'm
interested in basic document reading or editing functions, as are now
available on some displays, without buying a full note taking device - they
tend to have a smaller number of cells (typically, 32) and provide features
such as networking that I probably don't need.

Foremost among my priorities: durability and reliability/quality of the
hardware, as well as good vendor cooperation with the BRLTTY project, of
course. I'm looking for a manufacturer who will stay around and provide very
good support for the device in the coming years. If there is anything new
about to enter the market that I've somehow missed, I'm interested in that
also.

These days, I use a combination of various operating systems - Mac OS, Linux,
Windows, iOS and Chrome OS to varying degrees - some at home and some at work,
so broad cross-platform support is desirable. Most braille displays have this
feature, of necessity, I suppose, as it's a small market that the
manufacturers are serving.

Comments are most welcome.