A great budget PDA.
Written: Jun 16 '02 (Updated Jun 16 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Looks great, zippy speed, good feeling stylus pen.
Cons: Not color, may be too bulky/plain for some.
The Bottom Line: Don't pay for the Palm name. The Visor Neo is a great PDA in the budget category of PDAs using PalmOS.
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| liquidrezin's Full Review: Handspring Visor Neo Handheld |
This is my first real hands on experience with a PDA. Of course I've been to places like Best Buy to fiddle with PDAs, but I myself have never owned one. I've been wanting a PDA for a while now and it seemed like a nice gadget with some utility.
I've done some previous research on various brands that were within the price range that I wanted to spend. My limit being $100-$150, I obviously could not buy a snazzy 64k color PDA or any PDA that was anything but basic. This is totally fine with me because I wanted something basic.
There were two candidates that were in my price range. These were the Handspring Visor Neo and the Palm m105. The Visor Neo was $99.99 and the m105 was $149.99 at Target.
The m105 and the Neo seemed similar from what were on the boxes and I figured the only reason the Palm cost more was because of the name.
After investigating further, I found the m105 came with a serial cradle and the Neo came with a USB one. Aren't serial ports dead yet? 1 for the Neo, 0 for the m105. Both models have 8Megs of RAM, but the m105 has an additional 2Megs of ROM. The score is now tied, 1 to 1. The Neo has an expansion slot called Springboard for many addons, but the m105 has no such expansion. 2 to 1 in favor of the Neo. Processor-wise, both of these PDAs have the same type: Motorola DragonBall VZ MC68VZ328. However the Neo runs at 33Mhz while the m105 runs at 16Mhz. 3 to 1 in favor of the Neo.
Visually I found the Neo more appealing. It has a simple and classy design that I'm sure many people will like. The m105 looked a little odd to me because of the rounded bottom, but something minor as this shouldn't deter someone from buying a PDA if it's good. I liked the cover that came with the Neo. It looks nice and there are feet at the corners. This is so you can place the PDA down on a table with the cover touching the table, not the body of the PDA. However losing such a thing is pretty easy. I didn't like the m105's flip cover much, however this is again a minor detail. I did not consider these factors when deciding which one to buy.
The decision to buy the Neo wasn't hard. Now, which color? The Neo comes in red, blue, and smoke grey. All of the colors are outfitted in translucent plastic. I think this looks great with all of the colors, but I decided on smoke grey. Incidently the cradle was translucent also, however the choice you make in color does not hold true for the cradle. The cradle is just clear plastic, which by the way I think looks good.
Upon opening the box, there were no suprises, good or bad. There was a quickstart guide, 2 AAA batteries, the PDA, the cover, software, manuals, and a Springboard accessory catalog (there are some pretty cool stuff you can add to your Visor in there).
I installed the Palm Desktop software onto my WindowsXP machine and everything went as it should without a hitch. I found Palm Desktop very easy to use and syncronizing with the Neo was a simple push of a button.
Installing software on the Neo is just as easy. You just double click on the program you want installed on your PDA and the next time you sync, the software is uploaded. This is assuming that the installation of Palm Desktop went OK.
I found one Springboard module especially tempting and I know I'll be purchasing it in the future. The one I'm speaking of is the Magellan GPS module. Whenever I go places that I'm not familiar with, I print out a map using Yahoo Maps, with the Magellan I won't have to do that, plus I'll see where I am on my Visor since it's a GPS based module. Pretty cool if you ask me.
I am very satisfied with my purchase. I'll be using my Neo daily to keep me on track with my projects at work as well as my daily life. Being a computer programmer, my stuff is just all over the place :) With my Neo however I'll be able to organize everything without all the clutter. The Neo is definately a good budget PDA.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 99.99
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Epinions.com ID:
liquidrezin
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Reviews written: 9
Trusted by: 1 member
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