VisorCentral.com (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/index.php)
- Visor & Deluxe (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/forumdisplay.php?forumid=1)
-- rating the visor (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/showthread.php?threadid=688)

Big 5

The metal blue stylus from my Rainbow Pack is a MUST HAVE in comparison to the cheesy plastic one. I love the security of not having to worry about scratching the thing. That cover goes back on before I ever lay the thing down!

MJH <><

5. The jeans trick worked on my stylus (thanks!) and I don't mind the cover. My first palm PDA (I'm selling my REX on ebay)and I've had no problem getting going, and already have a lot loaded in. Plenty of room left...

Just a 5?! How about a 10! I got mine on Monday the 15th and have installed AvantGo! AlbumToGo, Big Clock, Astroids, Diddle, EVPlug Base, GreenLightHack, HotGames, LauncherIII, PacMan, PilotKart, and TuneTapper. (Downloaded them during my month long wait for my Blue VDx.) This is my first Palm device and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I played around with a HP Jornada and Palm III in Circuit City. The HP was clearly slower. Yeah, it has a voice recorder which I tried but didn't play back clearly and the MP3 was a joke because the speaker was so weak! Headphones may have helped, though. James Bond should have gone with the Visor.

4.5, wish they had tapered the base more like the III. Looking at it they could have taken quite a bit off.

The stylus doesn't bother me that much as soon as there is an in-silo stylus/pen I will replace it anyway.

5.

------------------
Mark Neumann
[email protected]

Hardware - 4.85
Service - 0.15

As nearly perfect as the actual Visor is, their Customer "Service" has been just as imperfect (and not getting much better).

4.5, Let me tell yah why.

I LOVE the visor... I really do. However it has the same problem all the Palm's but the PalmIII had... really blecky backlighting... (as I noticed AGAIN on the plane flying out to Seattle.) Even with the Green Light hack (which is great), when there is even a little light, that backlight seems useless.
-.25

Can't stand the stylus... it scratches NOT my BVD, but my HAND... all the time. constantly having to turn it. Will have to get a new one SOON . -.25

other wise it syncs faster than any of the 3 other Palms I had ordered and returned. I have a truckload of games and stuff and haven't had any crashes or anything.

Happiness!!!!

(me dancing the happy joy joy dance.)

Hmmmm, without trying any cool Springboard modules I can only give the Visors I received a 3.
I don't like the removable cover and the overall design. The construction of my Palm feels much stronger and the design is just easier to use (flip the cover and beam -- I love that). We all know that the stylus is lame.
The Visors I purchased were for my wife and son. However, after playing with the new devices for a day, I definitely prefer my Palm.
I ordered these Visors on September 14th so please bear with my criticism. The Visor isn't bad, just not as good as I expected. Maybe I will change my mind when more Springboard modules begin shipping.

3-. without a paper clip i couldn't start my visor 25% of the time. it also locks up my desktop software at the start of a hotysnc on a regular basis. Home organizor, a graphical launcher (which i used without problem on my IIIX) is incompatible with the visor.

stylus (-.1)
squishy screen (-.1)
scratchy screen (-.1)

Total: 4.7
That's still an "A," at 94%.

The display sharpness is great (I had a Palm III). It seems much more snappy than the III, too. Cover is acceptable. HotSync setup was flawless (serial with NT4).

It was worth the wait.

I'd rate it a 4.5. I was lucky and it got to me in ~3 weeks. It was easy to transfer addresses, etc. to the Visor. There are a couple of things that could be improved, though:

1. short battery life: I've had my Visor for over a month and I'm on my second set of batteries. The first set only lasted 3 weeks (instead of 2 months). It could be that I used it a lot at first, but I'm not sure. Anybody else with this problem?

2. as everyone's said: the stylus. I just found out about this forum and I'm happy (but sad) to see that I wasn't the only one having problems with the stylus. The grafitti portions of my screen are completely scratched. I figured out the blue jeans trick, but it seems that the fix is temporary. I'll be calling Handspring in the next couple days about that.

3. the shipping charges: I ordered a belt clip for the visor. At $8.00, the shipping charges increase the price of the item by approximately 40%. What's the deal with $8.00? Something that size shouldn't cost more than $3-4.

4.8

I can never give something a perfect score. Handspring's shipping problems are the main reason for the .2 deduction. The squishey screen is disconcerting. I upgraded from the Palm Pilot 5000 so the stylus was very familiar. I haven't had any more of a likelyhood of scratching my screen than with my palm. It's solid and the cover is fine.

Joe

3.5

There are pros and cons.

The Palm Vx is a good comparison to the Visor Deluxe.

Palm wins hands down on ergonomics and quality of craftsmanship. The Visor's flip top is awful, the screen, as some have said, is squishy, the backlighting is terrible. The unit looks cheap.

Visor wins on technology--i.e., Springboard, and Datebook+.

Visor wins on batteries. I think AA batteries are a much safer solution, and when combined with a backup Springboard makes your data safe.

Visor wins on price. With Palm Vx at close to double the price--this is no contest. If the prices were identical, it would be a close call, but I would still take the Visor, even though it is a work in progress.

4.5

Thoughts:

Avant Go is the killer app for the Visor. With the 8Mb of RAM, USB and a DSL line*, I can synch approximately 20 sites in less than minute!

The IR Range is much better than the Palm III - mine works from about 10 feet away - I user OmniRemote to change channels on the TV from the coach across the room.

I disagree with the "cheap feel" comments - I actually like the snap on cover, it seems a much more solid cover than the Palm III's - the "hinges" on my PIII cover broke off, requiring me to replace it. Once you get use to the Visor's cover, you can take it off quite quickly.

I found that that the Visor snaps in to the cradle much more easily and reliably than the Palm.

Finally the Ice case is pretty cool looking.

So why not a 5 - customer service is part of it - although we are supposed to focus solely on the Product and not customer service, with out my serial cradle, I can't synch to my work PC, which impairs it usability relative to the Palm. Although I ordered a serial cradle with my Visor, mysteriously when I got the order, my serial cradle had become am 8Mb Springboard, which I was informed was backordered!

The other reason for the less than perfect score, no killer Springboards released with Visor. The major promise of this device is still unfulfilled.

*Note: DSL line sold separately.