The DM41L is here!

[Ángel Martin]

I got a DM41L as an early Xmas gift and for the most part am favorably surprised - a valuable effort worth praising, even if in my opinion there are a few weak points such as:

- the LCD annunciators are too large and take up too much real state
- as a consequence the normal LCD area looks "displaced" to the top of the window
- LCD characters are a tad too thin - I guess i miss the segments!
- the SHIFTed key legends are too small, very hard to read for the most part and also slightly displaced above the keys.


On the bright side, the (mechanical) key response works reliably so far - just 3 days on the bench - hope it holds in the future. Surprisingly (since I was predisposed to dislike it) the lack of slanted keys does not bother me at all - the solution implemented works quite nicely.

The keyboard layout is a good compromise to adjust the original (perfection in my book) to the landscape format. I like the time functions being there but it's perplexing to see CORR and T+X chosen over other more frequently used ones, like YMD or CLK24...

Of course all these are just subjective and may have nothing to do with your own appreciation of the unit. After all, there's no telling to taste...

If the USB connection could be used to upload/download ROMs this would be a glorious product - is the technology required really that hard to make this happen??

Cheers,
'AM