Also it is worth mentioning that most decent smartphones should support a standard bluetooth keyboard, the iPhone goes one better and supports bluetooth braille displays as well.

Any fully accessible mobile phone will support text messaging with spoken feedback. While Talks on Symbion technically supported web browsing I didn't really get on with it, I also switched to an iPhone mid last year and while I don't do much browsing on it I know that I can if I need to with a good level of confidence. Again a bluetooth keyboard would be very helpful here for the iPhone specifically.

iPhone accessibility for the built in apps is very high. Even the maps app lets voice over read your estimated street address, and the youtube and iPod apps are excellent and all three are pre installed.

Of course the advantage of a Symbion phone is it gives you physical buttons to press.

There are tactile screen protectors available for the iPhone which have dots on the keyboard positions, there is even an iPad one which has full braille markings for the keyboard but sadly you can't make calls from an iPad.

Or netbook, which is smaller and lighter. Not as small as an iPhone by any standards of course but you can generally put your existing screen reader on it and away you go.

Unfortunately I don't believe there is, but I do gather that it supports several bluetooth braille displays including the FS 40 blue. I can't say whether or not the keyboard functions on such a display work or not since I sadly cannot afford a braille display, costing approximately 5 times as much as my iPhone was.

If you aren't carrying a separate keyboard then a Symbion phone I find is faster for typing in, but the navigation around the OS is much better on the iPhone. You actually learn where things are on the screen relative to each other over time which is a very liberating experience.

Sadly no. It will only connect to keyboards or braille displays through bluetooth, and since neither the pac mate nor the PM braille displays are enabled for bluetooth this won't work. Even if you use a bluetooth adapter it wouldn't be set up to make the pac mate work as either a bluetooth keyboard or braille display.

I cannot comment as to whether it would be possible to use tethering if your network offers this, but if it requires software to be installed onto a PC then the answer is no.

Well even if it did have bluetooth, I can't talk about the newer versions since the QX400, it probably wouldn't be set up to run as a bluetooth keyboard. That's the sticking point, the iPhone wouldn't be set up to recognise a note taker as a note taker unless it was able to pretend to be a standard device like a keyboard.

That's a SIM lock, Talks offers that option though they do charge extra for it. If you change SIM card or network you'll need to have your license transferred assuming Code Factory have such a service available.

I'm not saying it isn't useful, it is just well worth being aware of the limitations you are getting yourself into. It's all about choosing what is right for you.

I can't help saying that if I can like mobilespeak for anything is the choice of voices.
We'll take Polish, since it actually has 1 extra synth.
So, we have 2 loquendo voices, one male and 1 female. they're just 8khz, but otherwise don't have any compression and are very easy to understand.
We also have 1 female acapela voice. this one sounds just like the pc version, 22khz, 1 6 bit. It, too, is easy to understand though has some weirdnesses and pronounciation difficulties.
And then we have one voice just called speak. It was the first ever polish software synthesizer and although released long ago for dos is still popular. It has been updated to work on pac mate, windows as sapi, and symbian. it's 16 khz, doesn't really sound human but has great speed.
with talks, if you have a symbian 9.2 or earlier phone you still can use the realspeak mobile voice. those are also 8/11khz, but they aren't compressed and easy to understand. If you're like me, however, and have symbian 9.3 or newer, you are forced to use vocalizer mobile, which  I think really sucks. it sounds like it really has been compressed. sure, it may be about 500kb, but it sounds absolutely crap and I've been experiencing frequent clicks with certain words, and that doesn't really help matters...
I wish apple would have went with a different company for voices. Some companies, like humanware addopted vocalizer but are actually switching (they will allow users of the stream and trekker breeze to use acapela voices in their full quality). One thing I saw frequently with the reviews of that device as well as the plextalk was that the voice wasn't really pleezing to read with for long durations, and I can't help agreeing.