VisorCentral.com (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/index.php)
- Visor Prism (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/forumdisplay.php?forumid=19)
-- CompUSA (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/showthread.php?threadid=9531)

Today I went over to CompUSA to get my first look at a real live Prism. The one on display was clearly dying -- it was almost impossible to get the screen to stay on, and most of the buttons didn't work.

I could barely see the display, so I asked one of the salesmen if he could show me a working Prism with a photo on the screen. The ability to look at clear color photos will be a deciding factor for me.

The salesman immediately whipped his Palm IIIc from his pocket and showed me the stock bridge and catamaran images that come with the photo software and began explaining that the Palm IIIc was the better choice. When I explained that I already had several Visor springboards and wanted to stay in the Visor family, he kept pushing the Palm. When I told him I already had an EyeModule, he waxed on about the Kodax digital camera.

Moments later, annoyed that I had not gotten a decent pitch on the Prism, I overheard a CompUSA manager tell some of his salesmen that there was an employee competition coming up -- if you successfully push the Omnisky, you get a free Palm.

Do CompUSA employees generally try to steer customers away from Handspring? They weren't trying very hard to sell it to someone right there and willing to pay the $449!

--dianeholly

Were you in the CompUSA....

on 5th avenue and 38th street? If you were, I know which salesman you're talking about. A real schmuck he is.

I tried to straighten him out on some of his errors about his pitch and stance on the different devices they were selling. He ran away from me (I guess I know more about the products he sells than he does. heh). Then giving too much information isn't always a good thing either.

The Prism is a really nice product. Much nicer than the IIIc (tho the IIIc does have a slightly brighter backlight). Don't use the eyemodule in the Prism until you d/l the patch for it.

Don't get twisted about the free Palm for pushing Omnisky. RCS and Datavision are doing the same thing since Novatel has finally released their wireless devices for all the Palm products.

But getting back to that salesman, he claims to have had a Prism, but didn't like it so he's pushing the IIIC instead.

Pay him no mind.

you're right!

How did you know? It WAS the 5th Ave. store -- and yes, he did say that he'd dumped a Visor in favor of the IIIc. He also mentioned the brighter backlight.
Small world, huh?
--dianeholly

Re: you're right!

quote:

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Originally posted by dianeholly
How did you know?...
Small world, huh?

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__________________

God bless America, my home sweet home...

dianeholly,

I had a similar experience in there on Thursday when I was looking for writerights for my Prism.

It is a small world, isn't it?

I went this weekend to a CUSA on Long Island, and they did have a Prism under the counter which they were willing to let me look at and play with. Not sure if it's a better run store, or they just had more time to get ready (the Prism is in their flyer this weekend).

Happily, I wasn't as impressed with it as I thought I would be. Yes, there are more colors than the Palm but the pixilation is still there. I found that I could actually read text on my VDX better and with less eye strain. Satisfied that I could really master the usually overpowering urges of my technolust, I was able to save the $449. Well, at least for a while...on the way out I bought an HP 1215 injet printer. That was another urge I had been fighting although I wanted one for my digital camera. But when I saw that it had IR printing for my Visor, I was done for.

__________________
-Michael-

quote:

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Originally posted by MHCohn
But when I saw that it had IR printing for my Visor, I was done for.

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__________________

God bless America, my home sweet home...

quote:

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Originally posted by MHCohn
Satisfied that I could really master the usually overpowering urges of my technolust,

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quote:

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Originally posted by MHCohn
Happily, I wasn't as impressed with it as I thought I would be. Yes, there are more colors than the Palm but the pixilation is still there. I found that I could actually read text on my VDX better and with less eye strain. Satisfied that I could really master the usually overpowering urges of my technolust, I was able to save the $449.

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I'm also getting mixed feelings about the current Visor lineup. I think I'm going to wait until the next generation comes out. Something not nessecerily in color, but with an easy to read screen in low light conditions. Also, a faster processor and rechargeable battery pack. I don't think that's too much to hope for.

Vertigo & Gameboy,

I wouldn't say I'm getting mixed or negative feelings about the new HS line. Actually I'm pretty happy that I'll be able to get more than one year of contentment and satisfaction out of my VDX without feeling left behind in features. That's a pretty good feeling, and unusual (in my experience) for PDAs and computer-related hardware in general. And it means on the next round, when there's really some advance or feature I want, I won't have spent my money on some intermediate upgrade. By the same token, the improvements in the two new units and the coup of selling them in Walmart, Target etc. means that HS will be keeping up their edge over Palm and insuring that it will remain a viable marque.

I do wish though, that HS could/would (maybe after the big Holiday selling season?)issue some sort of patch to get 3.5 on the VDX. Mine's fast enough for me, but the the ability to get 16 bit grayscale for Album to Go and a couple of games would really make me a happy geekboy.

__________________
-Michael-

quote:

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Originally posted by MHCohn
Vertigo & Gameboy,

I wouldn't say I'm getting mixed or negative feelings about the new HS line. Actually I'm pretty happy that I'll be able to get more than one year of contentment and satisfaction out of my VDX without feeling left behind in features. That's a pretty good feeling, and unusual (in my experience) for PDAs and computer-related hardware in general. And it means on the next round, when there's really some advance or feature I want, I won't have spent my money on some intermediate upgrade. By the same token, the improvements in the two new units and the coup of selling them in Walmart, Target etc. means that HS will be keeping up their edge over Palm and insuring that it will remain a viable marque.

I do wish though, that HS could/would (maybe after the big Holiday selling season?)issue some sort of patch to get 3.5 on the VDX. Mine's fast enough for me, but the the ability to get 16 bit grayscale for Album to Go and a couple of games would really make me a happy geekboy.

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I've been pretty favorably impressed. I was certain that I'd be waiting a while after reading the posts on this board. But I went to the dreaded CompUSA and saw one. They sales guy was a dink, but that's to be expected. The clarity of the colors blew me away, the improved readability of the datebook and such, and even the improved speed. All things I didn't think would matter. I've gotten awfully attached to my VDX. But once I held this baby in my hands, it was all over.

My one concern: will I be tired of this and develop technolust for some new device before the battery wears out?

__________________
What if your sole purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others?

I concur w/most of the comments.

CompUSA seems to specialize in hiring idiots. It's just too amazing. Then, if you try to complain, either there's "no mgr. available" or he/she will just try to make excuses for their inexcusable salespeople.

Color photos are a make-or-break deal for me, too, and I can't buy a Prism w/out seeing some. Yes, I've seen and been awed by some I've seen posted -- but it's diff. seeing it in person. I was pretty surprised / depressed at the pixilation of the Prism screen, generally, and think my VDX is sharper. I was esp. irked at the "jaggies" you see when using the largest system font.

Worse / more thoughtless ... no COLOR in the system fonts! Does the Chrome app take care of this, so HS didn't bother? Otherwise, why modify the OS as their own, unless they'll make tweaks Palm left out (I believe the IIIc made this same error). I hope chrome allows you to change the color of character-by-character, icon-by-icon, entry-by- entry, etc.

But I need to see 64k pix. So it would have been nice to pre-load (or DEMO, CompUSA, uh?) HS's color viewer, etc.

I thought I'd be slick and just beam the EyeModule app from my VDX to the Prism on the counter. But the Prism "knew" it wasn't the upgrade, and prompted me to get it. Dang smart gadgets...

quote:

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Originally posted by bkbk

I thought I'd be slick and just beam the EyeModule app from my VDX to the Prism on the counter. But the Prism "knew" it wasn't the upgrade, and prompted me to get it. Dang smart gadgets...

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I had to chime in, since I just bought a Prism from CompUSA 4 days ago. I've been to several in the Bay Area and I have to say that most of them do staff people who are less than educated on the items they sell.

One guy I ran into at the Marin outlet was so rabidly CE-oriented that he actually told a guy asking about OmniSky that it wasn't ever coming out (even though it was in beta at the time). He was incredibly rude to the guy, but he was nice to me since I'd recently picked up a Casio and we were discussing PPC's. He was also VERY well informed about CE devices and PDA's in general - he just had too much attitude.

In Emeryville, they're hopeless. They know zilch about their PDA's, never have anything in stock and their demos are thrashed. Don't even think you're going to get any info on these things there. One guy didn't even believe there was such a thing as a IIIc when I asked about them a few months ago.

Anyway, I sold my IIIc and got a Prism. I'm the kind of guy who has to have the shiniest thing and this was definitely shiny. It's by far the most powerful and feature-laden PalmOS device made... But it's also now the most expensive. My own personal feeling is the Prism should've been $400 at release and then dropped to $350 after a few months. Despite the faster CPU, Springboard and 16-bit color, it's still just a souped-up IIIc.

The display is almost identical unless you're looking at 16-bit pictures. The IIIc does have an almost imperceptibly brighter display. The IIIc is also considerably thinner, although it's longer. In a PDA, I think thin is better than short, but it's up to the individual.

Visually, the opaque cobalt case of the Prism is an unfortunate necessity. The light generated by the flourescent backlight would probably shine through the translucent cases of the other Visor models, so Handspring went with a new color - this metallic purply blue "cobalt." It's OK, but I'd have preferred a selection between this, Graphite and the Platinum's silver. The IIIc seems more sleek and cuts a lower profile.

Performance wise, the Prism walks all over the IIIc. It's visibly faster (even though it can't benefit from many 'overclockers' like Afterburner because its native CPU clock speed is faster than their highest setting, so look for software like QuickBits). The pictures look better even when viewing 8-bit (256 color) pictures in Fireviewer beamed directly from my IIIc, probably due to the larger palette of colors available. 8-bit pics only use 256 colors but can maintain palette data of over 150,000. Subsequently, images reduced to 8-bit in a paint program like Photoshop and then converted with Fireconverter look a lot better on the Prism. The USB sync is also much faster than the antiquated serial method the Palm IIIc is limited to.

Specification-wise, the Prism loses a little ground. It still doesn't have FlashRAM so the OS is basically patchable only with RAM software add-ons rather than keeping it all in Flash. Palm users also can access roughly half a meg of their Flash for extra storage. I was also concerned that a patch update was already issued by Handspring to fix Graffiti recognition.

OS upgradeability wouldn't be a concern to me if PalmOS 4.0 wasn't looming later next year. It could bring significant improvements to the system that the Prism and other Visors couldn't take advantage of. I don't feel like robbing my device of another half meg of RAM for a full OS upgrade.

Still, what moved me to buy the Prism is that it provides a Springboard expansion slot and subsequent expandability that is far more difficult to attain (and slower through the serial port) on the Palm. It also introduces the DragonballVZ 33MHz CPU, which Palm originally promised would go into the IIIc (and should have).

Since I can't go back to B&W after having color and I was feeling a little stagnant with the 8MB IIIc and its 8-bit color, the Prism has allowed me to keep a PalmOS device around. I still use my Casio E-100 for higher-end graphics, MPEG/MP3 playback and a few really amazing games, but the larger hardware/software library and support base for Palm compatibles is just too good to ignore.

Overall, the Prism is a great expansion on the concept of the IIIc, but people looking into it should keep in mind that it is only that, not much more. For that, look for the next generation of PalmOS devices with 4.0 and hopefully a little more power and resolution.

b

__________________
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bill s.
lead artist, the 3do company
visor prism / casio e-100
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

quote:

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Originally posted by bkbk
no COLOR in the system fonts! Does the Chrome app take care of this, so HS didn't bother? Otherwise, why modify the OS as their own, unless they'll make tweaks Palm left out (I believe the IIIc made this same error). I hope chrome allows you to change the color of character-by-character, icon-by-icon, entry-by- entry, etc.

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__________________
Taki
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Pixelator-
I could be wrong about this; but my understanding is that PalmOS 4 will run on StrongArm processors and therefore would not be compatible with the Prism (or any of the current Palm models) even if it had flash ROM. So, to my mind, the 'flash upgradability' of the Platinum and Prism is a moot point.

Jupe, I agree.

I've heard some rumblings about that, too. If it turns out that 4.0 is hardware-specific to new devices, then of course it won't matter to us (or any other PalmOS users). 3.5 would likely live out the rest of its life with patch upgrades.

I'm not really concerned about immediate compatibility issues, either. I just like the idea of being able to upgrade if the need arises. That ability has served owners of Palm V series devices very well, since that PDA has survived what, two major OS upgrades? But the argument stands that since the oldest Visors are still mostly compatible with modern Palm wares, that it won't be an issue for the Platinum & Prism, either.

b

quote:

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Originally posted by Jupe
Pixelator-
I could be wrong about this; but my understanding is that PalmOS 4 will run on StrongArm processors and therefore would not be compatible with the Prism (or any of the current Palm models) even if it had flash ROM. So, to my mind, the 'flash upgradability' of the Platinum and Prism is a moot point.

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__________________
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
bill s.
lead artist, the 3do company
visor prism / casio e-100
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=