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Handspring Releases New Visors
ByteHog writes: "Handspring now has 2 more Visors for us to play with. The Visor Neo, which comes in 3 different colors and the Visor Pro" The battery thing especially is a big deal.
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The first PalmOS device with 16MB RAM. No wireless. No color. No bluetooth. Not even PalmOS 4. I guess we'll make a big deal about the battery.
Not that there's anything wrong with making cases in a variety of colours, but when that's a major selling point of your product, I think you have problems.
--
E_NOSIG
until a new Palm OS comes out based on BeOS. Color, multimedia, usefulness...
I really hate to say it, but I am not optimistic about Visor's chances of turning a profit anytime soon. Cheaper knockoffs are starting to chip away at their customer base, and much wealthier companies are taking over the high end with their CE devices.
-sting3r
PDABuzz reports they each have a 33MHz Dragonball VZ.
The Handspring supports 802.11 with Intel Xircom's Springboard module. It's pricey (costs as much or more as the PDA), but nice for geeks I guess...
I just picked up a new Ipaq 3670. I've had several Palms in the past and I won't go back until they really change something. While the Ipaq's battery life sucks, the screen is so much better as is the response time.
I just got a cradle and AC adapter for home and work. I just drop it in the cradle whenever I'm not using it and the battery life isn't that big of a deal. Palm/Visor need to make up about 3 or 4 years of features FAST.
I'm afraid there hasn't been much innovation in PalmOS handhelds in quite some time. The only one that has impressed me recently is the one from HandEra (formerly TRGPro) which in addition to having a CF slot also increased the screen size in a backward-comptible way.
All PalmOS clones are stuck with the slow Dragonball line of processors, however.
-Karl
So, is it basically:
Visor Deluxe + 3 new colors = Neo
Visor Platinum + Rechargeable = Pro
... or am I not seeing much else?
I went and sold my Platinum when the Prism came out in hopes that _real_ new features (increased resolution, more on-screen colors (not just the case!!!)) were around the corner. It seems like there's really nothing new under the sun from Handspring this time around...
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http://www.aikiweb.com - AikiWeb Aikido Information
Do I pick the Red Visor or the Blue Visor?
Ok let's see what we get:
Colored Cases - So 1997
Rechargeable Battery - Palm V has been out for like what, 3 years?
16mb ram - Whoopty fucking do. How much RAM do you need on a Palm handheld anyway? (640kb ought to be enough for anybody. Heh.)
Not worth it. Not worth it at all. You can get a used Palm V on ebay for less than $150 these days. Now that's worth it.
Pete
The sole purpose of the Internet is to get porn and bomb making plans into the hands of children.
Handspring's (and Palm's, for that matter) wireless PDAs look a lot more interesting though. The idea of merging a cell phone with a PDA definitely seems like a good one to me (who wants to load their pockets with extra gadgets when you can get 2 for the size of 1. There was a story on The Register a few weeks ago when information about these models leaked out through the FCC's web site.
FWIW, if you want more details about these officially announced models, The Reg also has a story on them. It's interesting that Handspring continues to advertise their Springboard expansion slot, when the wireless models supposedly will not include one. Their marketing department will have a hard time explaining to all their loyal customers why they abandoned the biggest selling point of all their original models (or, more likely, they will just try to ignore the change).
The first ever Ultimate Frisbee video game: here (now
Hmm.. Useless notes program, or pocket word?
Hmm.. Useless Pocket Word or Wordsmith for the Palm? I've used Pocket Word. It stunk. You have a great PDA for word processing, just pick up Wordsmith and a folding keyboard.
I don't see any palm devices playing mpeg video any time soon
You need this why?
When Handspring Visors first entered the marked, they came with innovations like USB and more built in memory. Heck, even the Springboard module is interesting.
For the last year, their efforts seem to be awfully stagnant. I have a Visor Prism which is neat, but every visor to come out since then has been mainly cosmetic. These two new ones use the old greyscale screen and appear to be Visor Platinum variants.
Taking a product like the Platinum and just offering it in new colored cases is not innovation, it's marketing. Even the Pro (with 16 megs) appears to merely be a Platinum with an incremental improvement, but it is priced awfully high for the difference between the two products.
An innovation path they should be investigating is:
1. Standardize on color for all new Visors. Event he passive color of the Sony Clie (or Gameboy advance, for that matter) is better then the pure greyscale. It is difficult to rationalize STILL having B&W after these years. Color DOES have a purpose beyond multimedia, so "B&W is fine for Visors" doesn't fly, especially in light of how nice it looks on the Prism and Sony Clie.
2. Add onboard wireless networking of some sort. Either bluetooth or 802.11 should be in the hardware (or at least almost ready for prime time).
3. GPS on a chip. There are now GPS circuits available on single IC chips and the cost of this component is dropping rapidly. If Handspring wants to stay relevant, they should figure out a way to fit this into the product line of the future.
With the three above features, the Handspring Visor can move forward and take back (or pre-emptively prevent) market dominance from the prettier (but less efficient) Ipaq's of the world. The CE manufacturers will be doing this, so complacency at this juncture is ill advised.
I can't afford $200+ for a PDA, but $80 might be nice...why don't they even offer the basic 2MB model on the handspring site? That's sad. Give them a cheapone and they'll get hooked for more.
/. is made of money :)
Sorry, but $200 is just too big of a step for a PDA for me. Yes, not everyone on
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
1. Memory stick -- proprietary overpriced Sony technology with Sony's idea of copyright protection incorporated. Woo-hoo.
2. High res color screen -- You don't get something for nothing. Much lower battery life, much higher price ($499, compared to $299, it appears).
3. Palm + mp3 player -- Neat. But not as neat as the Handspring 'Springboard' expansion slot, which supports modules for (yes, you guessed it) an mp3 player, several GPS modules, industry standard memory expansion (SmartMedia adapters, etc) and many others.
Handspring still definitely leads in terms of Geek Factor [tm] on the basis of the Springboard modules alone.
Some things that I would like to see, beyond new colors, include:
Oh well. No one listens to me. I have sent Handspring email on this and called thier customer service line, but they don't seem to want to work in the areas that would pull them ahead of the pack. It may be to late, by the time they come around (if at all).
Actually, my girlfriend just got a Sony CLIE' PEG-320 (33mhz Dragonball) and it came with software to allow Quicktime video clips to be played on it.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
As far as I'm concerned, the PDA is lacking the out of the box functionality which we were promised when they first came out. I want a PDA that is more than just a pda. It should have snap-ins for more than just management (notes and w*rd). How about a snap-in for your servers, showing network health, traffic, cpu load, logs, etc. Remote equipment monitoring would go a long way. Time spent hacking my PDA is time spent better elsewhere!
I think I'll wait for a real tricorder
1. Memory Stick -- The white MagicGate DRM sticks are only used for playing back ATRAC3 format audio. Unless you're a big MiniDisc fan, the purple non-MG sticks work fine with MP3s.
:-)
2. High-res color screen -- The battery life isn't nearly as bad as you think. The MP3 player sucks far more power. (You can watch the meter go down if you leave the screen on while playing.) And there are now $399 models that trade the MP3 player for PalmOS 4 and 65K colors. In silver or purple. Take that, Neo!
3. Springboard -- Point conceded. Sony has hinted that stick-based devices are in development, but so far, it's just marketing vapor. I'd settle for better throughput.
This sig intentionally left blank.
The red,white and blue colors are a nice touch right now.
The only PDA I've seen in a while that has done something new is the Handera
Handera Website
More expansion options, jog wheel, but the cool one is the "virtual graffeti area" that you can move around, and the ability to rotate the screen 90-degrees for spreadsheets or books or whatever.
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
(Smash amp, burn guitar, take home the groupies)
The only reason I preferred the Handspring to the Palm was that it took AAA batteries. I have yet to encounter a recharger while camping (and no, I can't plug it into a "current" bush.)
So now there's another useless chunk o silicon out there. Big deal.
John
John
Interesting, but, dollar for dollar, the best PalmOS based PDA right now is the Sony Clie PEG-S320...
I picked one of these up at Fry's a month ago for $200 bucks. It has PalmOS 4.0, 4 megs of FLASH(!), 8 Megs of RAM, a Memory Stick Slot, a 33MHz dragonball, Lithium Ion Battery (1.5 weeks or so per charge) and a Jog Dial. Sure, it looks a little girly, but you can't find anything else like it for under $300.
Yes, it still has the lame 160x160 2bpp screen, but why do you need more? A friend of mine just bought a spiffy new iPaq for about $500, and all he got was an MP3 player(do I really want to fill my memory with mp3s???) a picture viewer, and some cool looking games. Neat stuff, but that's not what I bought my PDA for. If that's what you want, go buy a Game Boy and a Rio...
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
The Neo is exactly the same as a Platinum, but with pretty case colors and a newer version of PalmOS. It has that quick-lookup thing for the address book. Since it costs the same as a Platinum ($200), if I were to buy a Visor today, it would be a Neo.
The Pro has two features over the Platinum/Neo: 16MB and rechargeable battery. The rechargeable battery might actually be cool for people who use their Visor heavily and/or use Springboard devices that need a lot of power. But this is assuming that the rechargeable battery holds more power than a pair of AAA cells... and I haven't found any hard numbers on that. (It ought to; a built-in Lithium ion battery can pack more power into less space than AAA cells, especially rechargeable AAA cells.)
I use NiMH AAA cells in my Visor Deluxe. They do not last as long as Duracell AAA Ultra cells, but I do get weeks out of them. I like being able to carry a couple of AAA cells and swap them in anytime my Visor runs low on power. I also like being able to buy disposable AAA cells at any store if I run out of power and for some reason don't have my spare AAA NiMH cells on me.
Anyway, these are nothing earthshaking. They are competent upgrades, but nothing really new. This is Handspring in a holding pattern.
What Handspring must do is come out with an answer to the Palm m505: small, thin, sexy, and with color. Handspring execs have said in interviews that the Visor Edge has sold very poorly, and they realize that it was a mistake to make a device like the Edge that isn't color. Within a reasonable amount of time, Handspring needs to come out with something like the Edge but with color.
And they should be very careful about introducing any new connectors. Both Palm and Handspring have been surprisingly cavalier about introducing new connectors, breaking compatability with accessories. Palm seems to have reformed: they swear that their new "Universal Connector" will not be changed for several years at least. Handspring needs to either use the same connector as the Visor Edge, or adopt the exact same connector as the Palm Universal Connector, or (distant third choice) maybe a new connector that will be the last new connector they invent for several years at least.
Failing that, they should come out with something like the Pro but with color. The Prism is a good product, but it is bigger than the Visor Deluxe/Platinum/Neo/Pro; you can't use the same cases, you can't use the same keyboard accessories, etc. (I thought about buying a Prism, but it would be a lot of money for the Prism, then more money for a new keyboard, a new case, a charging travel kit, and a battery-powered emergency charger...)
The Visor Deluxe is about as big a PDA as I'm willing to carry around anyway; I don't think I want to try carrying a Prism. If they can make a product exactly like the Prism but with exactly the same form factor as the other Visors, I think it would sell well. I'd buy one.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
I will trade away color for battery life any day. My PDA (TRGPro) is supposed to be a PD*A*, not an entertainment device.
I know that color can help the GUI a bit in quicker human recognition and differentiation, but it sucks a lot of power. I don't need color until a Palm with a color screen runs 4 weeks on a pair of AAA batteries.
I do agree that wireless networking is an essential feature for the near future and GPS could be very valuable.
I think it was a poor choice for Handspring to use a proprietary expansion slot. One of the reasons I selected my TRG was that it had a standard Compact Flash slot. I can use almost any CF peripheral, including additional memory, modem, barcode wand, whatever.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
When the colours are the ONLY major selling point of your prodict, that's an issue.
Otherwise, choice is king. Have you ever changed the plate on your cell phone? How about getting a couch to match your other parts of your house?
Consumers are colour concious, in addition to being aware of the computational features.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
As for the screen, I just recently upgraded from a IIIxe to a Clie N610C, and the differece is remarkable. And while color is often not necessary, I find myself echoing the comments I heard when the IIIc came out -- with a color screen, "black and white" is "black and WHITE", not "black and pea-green." It does improve the readability, and with the rechargable battery I can even run with full backlight full time without getting even close to draining it.
However, the real kicker is the high resolution. Now that I have it, I can't stand to look at other Palm devices. It used to be that I couldn't really read the Palm for an hour without getting a slight headache (I should point out that I'm about 18 and have 20/20 vision -- it's not bad eyes, it's a bad screen). Now, the high-res fonts are just so easy to read that I can sit with it for hours, reading ebooks or the New York Times (which I sync to it daily). Worth every penny I paid for it.
-- Imagine how much more advanced our technology would be if we had eight fingers per hand.