THE PEBBLE-MINI: THREE YEARS AND IT STILL WORKS

I certainly am happy with my purchase of the Pebble-mini. This electronic magnifier is the best vision aid I've ever had. Never would I trade it for any other or go back to old fashioned optical magnifying glasses.

The reasons for my effusive praise for this device are many. First of all, it fits into my shirt pocket like a deck of cards. It also comes with a lanyard to prevent it from falling to the floor.

The Pebble-mini has few controls, making it easy to learn the functions and use them. The buttons are also large. Some electronic gadgets have such small buttons that it's easy to press two or more at once. Not so with the Pebble-mini. It has four function buttons, a scroll wheel, and a power button. Two keys are on the left side of the colour LCD screen and two are on the right hand side. Between the keys is a ridge to prevent confusion or accidental pressing of both keys.

I love the ability of the Pebble-mini to enlarge text and swap out the background colours to those best suited for your vision. It comes with seven colour combinations and three of them can be adjusted further if the defaults are unsuitable for you. Additionally, it can view photos in colour and grey scale. I've found that it helps me understand what's going on in a photo as well as to recognize people in it.

The snapshot function is so handy for when you're looking up a phone number. Instead of holding the magnifier over the phone book while dialing, you just take a freeze frame image. I've found that it saves strain on my back whenever I need to look up a phone number or type in a serial number into the computer when I'm installing software.

The Pebble-mini lets you copy images into the computer as well. That way, you can have a visual reminder of a phone number or capture a small image.

The Pebble-mini sure is light years better than what I had when I was in school. I didn't have a proper magnifying glass until I was seventeen years old. Before that, I used two week glasses held together. It also is far better than the magnifying lenses set into the frame of eye glasses which my parents had made for me.

The only downer about the Pebble-mini is that the battery doesn't last as long as I'd like it to. Other than that, it's a great vision aid to have when at restaurants or reading prescription bottles. A stand comes with the magnifier so reading books is easier. Check out the Enhanced Vision web page for more information on this excellent device.

Deliverance from Jericho shows how difficult it was for me to find a workable solution regarding reading regular print. Check out my paperback at the Bruce Atchison's books page.