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.

Comments

Sad to say

[sting3r]

Although it is very cool to have these new models available, the PDA industry is facing an uphill struggle right now as the economy sours and the industry's usual customers don't have quite as much discretionary income which can be spent on expensive toys like these. Although Visor does have a definite cost advantage over Palm, it is not clear whether or not the market will sustain either as users move to cheaper CE-based devices.

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

Where's the innovation?

[Chairboy]

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.

no more 2MB version?

[cetan]

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.

Sorry, but $200 is just too big of a step for a PDA for me. Yes, not everyone on /. is made of money :)

Not great but not bad

[steveha]

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

Color vs. Battery Life

[r2ravens]

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.