Handspring Visor Pro Solves Basic Palm Problem
Written: Jan 26 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: 16 Megs RAM, Springboard Slot, Great Battery life
Cons: Same old Palm Backlight, few included applications, Palm OS 3.5, no Leather Case.
The Bottom Line: The Visor Pro is the perfect business PDA because it has lots of room and power for extended trips.
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| rclayh's Full Review: Handspring Visor Pro Handheld |
I don't know about you, but my problem with any Palm OS-based PDA has been the same - I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH ROOM FOR ALL THE COOL APPS I WANT TO LOAD! Well that fundamental Palm shortcoming is removed with the Visor Pro. Everything else about the Visor Pro is remarkably similar to the Visor Platinum and the Visor NEO. The screen is the same, the applications included are the same. The cradle is different, in that it is a charging cradle. The Pro features a Lithium ION rechargeable battery that will according to the web site power the unit for two months. I would imagine that rating is if you leave it sitting in a box and never touch it. Actual use probably will give you a good 8 - 10 days, and even heavy use should yield a week. I can't say with certainty because I haven't been able to run the battery down yet! That is one of the compelling features about sticking with a PDA that has a greyscale screen. You can charge it and use it for days (vs. hours on most color PDAs).
Let's go into some details:
The Box features the new Visor logo and new look - very nice. Inside you'll find:
* The Visor Pro unit with Stylus (only 1)
* A "Start Here" Card that tells you how to charge and power on the unit.
* A Customer Support Card.
* A Lit Pack with CD (Visor Pro Quick Reference Booklet, A vinyl cling Handspring sticker, and a white paper back Handspring sticker, $10 off your next purchase if you register your unit card, Extended warranty information card, and a customer support options card. The CD has Palm Desktop [4.01 Win 2.6.2 Mac], HotSync Manager 3.1, Chapura Pocket Mirror Standard [for linking to Outlook] and an Electronic User's Guide). A Catalog of Visor Add-ons is also included.
* A USB Black Cradle
* AC Adaptor that plugs into the USB connector on the cord (would've been nicer if it just plugged into the cradle itself like Clie's)
The unit "snapped" in and out of the cradle fairly snuggly but I imagine that will settle over time. Powering up the unit is just like any Palm OS. You calibrate the digitizer set the time and go. The first big (and most pleasant) surprise comes when you hit the menu button and select Info. The unit freshly powered up has over 16,000K free. The extra software gizmos that some people pile in their ROM are missing so the Handspring PRO is like walking out into a huge open pasture. This means lots and lots of room for what YOU want to put on your PDA. At the time of this writing there was only one other PDA available with 16 megs of RAM and that was the Sony CLIE PEG-T615 (which hasn't made it to epinions yet) and it is loaded with extras so when you turn it on you are already down to 14000K or so.
So who is the Visor Pro for? Any one who can get by without color. The Visor Pro has an advantage over the rest of the Palms when compared to the Pocket PC because you can add any Pocket PC functionality you really want (except movies) to the Handspring. You can make it into an MP3 player, you can turn it into a wireless or dialup unit, you can add a camera. You can use it to make presentations. If you only need a subset of what a Pocket PC will do and don't need a color screen the Visor makes an outstanding choice. Also the Visor will give you more use, no question about it. Here's why (and they don't talk about this much). Batteries can only be recharged so many times before they are just worn out. They won't recharge any more. A laptop battery for example says it can usually be recharged 500 times before wearing out. If you are recharging your unit every 8-12 hours vs. every 8-12 days your unit just isn't going to go as far before it needs a part replaced. I've been using my Visor Pro for 3 days now, and I'm still at 100% charge. The Sony Clie PEG-T615 would drop to 80% in about 3 hours.
What about the operating system? The most current version of the Palm OS is 4 and most of the new Palms and Clie's feature 4. The Handspring Visor's are still at Palm OS 3.5. This means a couple of things. If you buy a storage card other than a Springboard flash card, you will need third party software to access the storage. If you put in a compact flash, or smart media Springboard card, you will have to use Third Party software (often supplied) to store files. As far as software goes, I have yet to encounter a piece of software that "requires" Palm OS 4.
The overall appearance of the Visor Pro is good and the champagne color is attractive. Because it is the standard Visor size and shape the multitude of accessories, cases, cradles, etc. will work with the Pro. I was able to use my folding sync cradle and it easily fit inside the Handspring Bi-Fold Leather Case for the Visor Deluxe.
I loaded all my standard software QuickOffice, PocketQuicken, Shadow Plan, and ThinkDB. All ran with no problems or freezes. The Visor web site claims that the Visor Pro is faster and it did seem a little faster than other 33Mhz units I've used, but it seemed only about as fast as the Palm m505 that I used.
I don't know about you but I like to do business with a good guy computer company and Handspring is run by Jeff Hawkins the "inventor" of the Palm Pilot. If you get a chance to see Jeff's COMDEX keynote check it out, I think you'll agree Handspring are folks you'd like to do business with.
I think you'll be very please with your Visor Pro if you are purchasing it for business use. It should help you in many ways get organized and increase your productivity.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 249.00
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Epinions.com ID:
rclayh
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Reviews written: 4
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