Registered: Sep 2000
Location: New Jersey
Posts: 100

quote:

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Originally posted by Athena
I don't particularly care about color, I was hoping for a rechargeable replacement for my Deluxe. What am I missing about the Neo? Why isn't it rechargeable too?

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 501

quote:

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Originally posted by mrjoec
I still can't figure out why people would actually prefer NOT to have a Li-ion rechargable.

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Jeff Meyer

"And he died like he lived: with his mouth wide open."

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Rushville, Indiana, USA
Posts: 24

I'm a Prism owner and would never go back to monochrome. I was at Best Buy yesterday comparing handhelds. I liked the Clie color devices but, wondered if it would really be readable in dim light. I really like the Prisms display for use in indoor office situations. I just wish the resolution was higher.

As to memory. If the 16 meg module is really $60 I would consider it.

Are there any users out there that have the smartmedia memplug and the program that is supposed to allow you to run programs from the SM card? How does it work? If it works well you can get a whole lot more that 16 meg for a few more bucks. But, I have the 8 meg module and its a no brainer as far as ease of use. Any comparisons?

tbonney

Attachment: usa.jpg
This has been downloaded 81 time(s).

Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 1571

Re: Re: Re: Its OS3.5!

But the Visor has no use for VFS Support out of the box. It doesn't use SD, CF etc cards out of the box.

quote:

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Originally posted by bookrats


VFS support, mainly. (Particularly for a Visor, which can have all sorts of secondary storage Springboard modules.)

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Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 1571

MOre expensive

I am assuming that it would be mre expensive with a rechargeable battery. they wanted to keep the price under $200.

quote:

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Originally posted by Athena
I don't particularly care about color, I was hoping for a rechargeable replacement for my Deluxe. What am I missing about the Neo? Why isn't it rechargeable too?

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Registered: Apr 2001
Location: Spring Lake Park, MN (45min from minneapolis)
Posts: 313

but something MOST of us aren't seeing is that MOST ALL OF US are geeks that want the newest and greatest. most people that buy pda's probably would never check the net, they just want something bettet than an address book. So color might be right for all of us the average customer is any old average joe.

for instace, i would never even be here or have heard of pda or anything unless i saw "Even Stevens" on disney channel, when Ren got a new electronic organizer for her birthday. so i went on the net and did a search for organizer, and electronic oraganizer. and i decided that handspring had the simplist site that was easy to understand and gave specs on the page(palm's site is too confusing for a very first timer) then i looked at handsprings software archive and saw a link to palmgear, i dont know waht i would have done with out palmgear. so a little less than a month later i used up every penny i had(and still had to borrow some money form dad) and went to several stores(best buy, target, walmart, circuit city) most stores didnt carry them and if i asked they looked at me with a funny face, and if they did most of them only had palms, then target had a sale for the visor2mb for $160( it was $180 at the time). but unfortenently they were all sold out. and since i was so badley wanted a visor i was about to get the palm m100(bestbuy and target were sold out) but since my dad was with me he said why not wait a bit longer for somehting you really want. then the sales man said they should be in stock next thursday. so that is the day i got my visor(i think).

i am posting this on another thread so more people get the point of what im saying.

ps: the message board on palm info center are kinda long and confusing.

__________________
"Few women admit their age. Few men act theirs."
"The sum of the intelligence on the planet is constant, but the population is increasing"
"I am not a vegetarian because i love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants.-- A. Whitney Brown"

Registered: Dec 2000
Location: Bonn, Germany
Posts: 55

the market is clearly favoring color models even at higher prices, meaning apperently the average joe cares a lot about color

of course the other thing is that black and white prices are stagnant, even with the price cuts.

If you want sales, put the new 16mb with recharging at $200, the rebranded plat at 150 or $160.

slim profits, probably. I think it would be worth it though, people like to see companies move product.

back to the color issue, the main selling on color is black and white. what I want to know is why isn't anybody putting any of the old black and white screen from old laptops into the palm format, I think that would really do well, good readable text, okay but b&w pictures, plenty of greyscales, better battery life and cheaper than color. Or has tech changed so much that these screens cost the same as the m505 style color? a good black and white (vs. blakc and green) screen would sell if sold at $200 or under.

Kg

Registered: Apr 2001
Location: Spring Lake Park, MN (45min from minneapolis)
Posts: 313

i wonder if a commercial on tv for handspring might do good for them?

__________________
"Few women admit their age. Few men act theirs."
"The sum of the intelligence on the planet is constant, but the population is increasing"
"I am not a vegetarian because i love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants.-- A. Whitney Brown"

Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Northern New Jersey
Posts: 55

I'd rather switch than fight

Not to sound like a traitor or anything, but a week ago I bought the Sony Clie 610C and a 64MB Memory Stick, and a few issues aside, it is much better than the Prism for me (and I'm one of those "16MB-void-the-warranty, check-Palm-Gear-every-five minutes-for-the-latest-upgraded-software" types).

First, the negatives:

1. The screen is not nearly as bright as the Prism's, because it is frontlit instead of backlit. That said, it's not terrible at all, and at 320x320, has four times the resolution of the Prism's 160x160. And if you're outdoors during the day, you can read it, unlike the Prism. which turns into a bad $400 mirror in sunlight. Even in low-res mode, the screen is more imporessive, and it's only slightly smaller than the Prism's screen. And bear in mind - if you're switching from a b/w screen, an haven't been spoiled by the Prism's luscious color, you'll think this is the greatest thing in the world.

2. You really can't use Fonthack for some reason. You get some fonts changed, but not all of them, and not the way you expect them to. I'm sure this is an OS4 compatability issue which will be addressed in the future by the font folks.

3. Palmfract (now known as P.Fract) won't run on OS 4.0 (this is obviously one of the less important reasons to not switch, but it's a great and fun program). The developer knows about the problem.

4. No wireless modem yet, though GoAmerica makes the Mylo for the b/w Clie 320 and claims one will be out in the next month or two for the color Clies

Now the positives (in no particular order):

1.OS4

2. Wait until you see what downloaded photos look like on this thing.

3.Backup to the memory stick with BackupBuddy VFS - no modules in or out - an occasional source of resets soft and hard on the Prism. Backup is very fast, only changing the apps you haven't modified or viewed in any way. And yes, the restore feature works beautifully.

4. Using PowerRUN, you can access memory directly from the Flash. No Beta - this is a working program. One negative is that while you can generaly store your apps on the memory stick and access them within a few seconds via an "alias/shortcut" on the internal Clie memory, data needs to be on the Clie. So you need to keep your ebooks on the Clie itself. Worst case scenario is that you keep some of them on the memory stick and move them to the Clie when you need them.

5. 8MB Ram and 4MB of Flash ROM. Using JackFlash I was able to access another 640K of unused memory in the ROM.

6. So far, in a week of transferring over a lot of stuff, and learning as I go, only one hard reset.

7. Technical support is open 24/7, and boy are they good. How many times have you gotten a Handspring tech who didn't know the answer to your problem, so was going to have to escalate your problem up to a second level support person who would be calling you back in 24 hours. Do they ever call back? (Only once did one of those guys ever call me back, with worthless advice that I told the original tech I had tried and which didn't work.)

I needed some help installing the Clie Palm Desktop software onto my Windows 95 office machine, which Sony says the Clie is not made for (98 and up only) and I got a woman who not only told me how to make it work, but talked me through the process. She REALLY knew what she was talking about. None of this "sorry, we don't suppoert that..." stuff

8. Sound is much better. I have games where the sound seems brand new to me.

9. Nice SLIM metal case (choice of very light purple or silver at the Sony Style center - I got silver). Nice metal buttons. Small but solid cradle. Jog dial allows for 1-handed use.

Now, I love my Prism, and until I can get the wireless modem, I'm keeping it because it's got the OmniSky module on it, but as of now, my Clie is my primary PDA.

Friends, I have seen the promised land!


eBoy

Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 1571

Not a Traitor

Eboychik:

You are not a traitor. I think that this is what competition is all about. Sony has raise the bar. It is up to Handspring to raise the bar even higher (without a higher price point). I think thats what they want to do before releasing their next color PDA.

Registered: Nov 1999
Location: Oak Grove, Kentucky
Posts: 211

BookReader?

Hi All,
I don't understand why Handspring couldn't at least have included a BookReader on their new devices? Like the PalmReader on Palm's new devices.

Byron

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Registered: Jan 2000
Location:
Posts: 391

Re: BookReader?

quote:

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Originally posted by ByronC
I don't understand why Handspring couldn't at least have included a BookReader on their new devices? Like the PalmReader on Palm's new devices.

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Rev. Peter da Silva, ULC<br>
<a href=http://www.taronga.com/~peter/>Ar rug t� barr�g ar do mhact�re inniu?</a>

Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Here
Posts: 213

Bread and butter with better bread and butter

The new models mean low development costs and maintain important features for bread and butter and new customer base.

There is a price point and for every buyer and feature. Some MUST have replaceable batteries, some MUST have recharge.

The NEO is a powerful entrypoint Visor and not a 2 meg toy for only $199.

The PRO is perfect for needing recharge and more memory and still the beefy springboard slot. For example for heavy module users, visorphone or GPS devices.

The killer color will emerge when it is ready !!!! Not everyone wants a $500 16 meg PDA.

Registered: Apr 2001
Location: Spring Lake Park, MN (45min from minneapolis)
Posts: 313

is it just me or do i see double posts?

__________________
"Few women admit their age. Few men act theirs."
"The sum of the intelligence on the planet is constant, but the population is increasing"
"I am not a vegetarian because i love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants.-- A. Whitney Brown"

Registered: Nov 1999
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 434

Eug's take:

1) For the entry level, monochrome is important. I still recommend monochrome machines to friends and colleagues who are not ultra computer geeks or early adopters. They function well and do what they are supposed to do, for a low price.

2) Colour IS the next thing, and something that many companies already realize. Like the laptop market is now, colour is fast becoming a required feature. However, this is NOT the same thing as putting a colour screen on an otherwise standard Visor. The Prism's screen resolution is far too low for my tastes, and the tastes of most of the non-geek types. I know many would disagree, but IMO, a 160x160 screen resolution for that size makes the screen difficult to read and much less useful. ie. One may as well just have a monochrome screen. If one wants to use colour, one needs a screen resolution as high or higher than the current PocketPC models. The Clie 610C screen is a step in the right direction. I've said before that the technology was widely available, and somebody just needed to implement it on a PalmOS platform.

3) Size is also important. I still think my VDx is a bit on the thick side. I would be happier to get a slightly thinner machine, although I want the screen size to stay similar. The solution of some of the PocketPC types to go for an even bigger machine to pack in more features I think is the wrong way to go, especially if it costs more.

4) An 8 MB memory size should be the MINIMUM. With even non-computer savvy people using stuff like AvantGo and free dictionaries an the like now, machines should have enough memory, with memory upgradability options.

5) FlashROM. People have talked about this ad nauseam but I still think it's a good feature to have, and I would pay a small fee to upgrade (not just update) the OS it if necessary.

6) Price. I find it difficult to recommend any PDA, colour or otherwise, that costs more than US$350. The Clie comes close though at US$399 and I think it should be a consideration for some people.