Since your time is at a premium and presumably you'll be reading a few other opinions on this excellent product, I won't rehash what has been repeated in other reviews. Rather, I'll highlight the key selling points of this product and a few tips/hints that I would recommend if you buy or own this product.

1) The Handspring Visor Platinum is exactly the same size as the older members in the family (4.8” x 3.0” x 0.7") and weighs 5.4 oz. This is smaller (mostly thinner) and lighter than the Palm III and VII families but slightly heavier than the sleaker Palm V's.

2) It only comes in one color - silver - which is very attractive, modern, and fairly conservative. One thing I was worried about was that the paint might wear off or scratch off after a few months of use leaving an unattractive uneveness in appearance. This has not been the case after almost four months of heavy use.

3) This PDA uses the fastest processor available on any Palm PDA - the Motorola 33Mhz Dragonball processor. It is noticeably faster than previous version (all 16 Mhz). To further speed up your Palm, I would highly recommend the program called Quickbits that can further speed up your Palm by another 100%. The URL for more information is http://www.2bitsoftware.com/QuickBits/default.htm

Try it. It's a free 30 day trial.

4) This Visor has 8 MB of memory. If you use some of the most popular software for the Palm, you'll definitely appreciate this. While 2 MB may be sufficient for most users, I definitely appreciate the additional flexibility of the extra 6 MB. Vindigo (an online city guide with restaurant, entertainment, and shopping information) and Avantgo (a program that downloads articles from the web when you Hotsync your Visor) are both huge memory hogs. Both of these programs alone take up almost 2 MB of space on my Palm. However, for me, it's well worth the space since I use it often when waiting for the bus or subway.

5) New Palm OS. Not very much different from previous versions except that many bugs have been fixed.

6) Comes with a USB cradle. Speedier transfer of data between your computer and your Visor compared to older connections.

7) Significant and ever broadening options for expansion. The Visors come with a Springboard expansion slot which can turn your Visor into a GPS locator, cell phone, MP3 player, and pager amongst current popular options. Why bother having three or four gadgets in your pockets, attached to your belt, or anywhere when you can have them all in one convenient place.

8) Comes with a great cover. The cover that comes with the Platinum is durable, easy to handle, and won't make your Visor bulky (less than 1/8" thick). Compare this to the $40 cover that you need to buy for the Palm V to protect it.

9) Uses alkaline batteries. Unlike the Palm V, this Visor Platinum uses disposable batteries. While I was originally dreading replacing batteries all the time, I've been pleasantly surprised by how long they've lasted in my Visor. I typically need to replace my batteries once every 5 weeks and that's with fairly heavy use - use throughout the day and about an hour of reading on most weekdays using the Avantgo application. Of all the batteries that I've used, I've found the new Duracell Ultra batteries to be the best bang for the buck. Spend the extra dollar or so on them and you'll be happy that you did.

10) 4 bit display. While this won't be very noticeable unless you play games or use graphical applications on your Palm, this is another great feature of the Platinum. What it means is that you get 16 shades of grey compared to only 4 shades for 2 bit displays (all other Visors and Palms). In terms of protecting your screen, I would highly recommend buying a back of WriteRight screen protection films. They're rather expensive but you don't need to replace them every month as recommended by the manufacturer. The current one I'm using has been on for three months now. Each package comes with 12 and costs about $20. Share it with a friend and you'll have enough for more than a year. I know it's a lot for essentially fancy Saran Wrap but they do protect your screen from annoying scratches.

All in all, an excellent product. I would highly recommend it. I hope you've found my review useful. If you have, please give recommend my review. Thanks.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 285