Registered: Mar 2000
Location:
Posts: 12

Now that Palm is shipping its PalmIIIxe for $249, whats your take on it.

It too has 8mb, no USB though (I use W2K.. so the USB is still useless to me) but has Flash ROM..(aaagh!)

That FlashROM has been plauguing me. Now that Handspring has shipped out this many Visors.. what happens when they move on to a new version of the Palm OS, say 3.5H ?

Developers are moving on to be compatible with the new OS... will that mean we need to download all the software we need now and save them for future use ? :-)

I love my Black Visor. But would be very unhappy if it were to become obsolete in the very near future.....

Registered: Mar 2000
Location: Roseville, MN, USA
Posts: 161

I think the IIIxe looks like a great machine, but I think I'd get more use out of USB and a Springboard slot than I would the flash ROM. I'm thinking about buying something to replace my Palm III in the next month or two, and these are the two units I'm considering.

I doubt many developers will release 3.5 only applications any time soon. It would severely limit the market for their software, and I don't think there's much they would do to use 3.5 that would prevent the app working on previous OSes. Handspring can still release ram based updates, and there's plenty of room for them in a Visor Deluxe.

Registered: Mar 2000
Location:
Posts: 12

RAM based updates ?? That is definitely good news. I am sure that is more than enough space on the Visor for that. I am very new to handhelds and was a wee bit worried about that Flash Rom. Thanks again.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Redwood City, CA
Posts: 55

Look at the economics.

3.5 has color (and other minor improvements) and Palm has ONE unit running it now.

How many Palm Personals, Palm PROs, Palm IIIs, Palm IIIes, Palm IIIxs, Palm IIIxe's, Palm Vs, Palm Vx's, Palm VIIs, TRG PRO's and Symbol units are out there? Then add Handspring Visors on top of that. That total is what makes Palm the succes it is. And even though most of those Palm units are flash upgradeable, how many people use it? According to what I have read, very few. Most people use the flash memory as extra storage space. Palm cannot afford to do anything that would ignore any portion of these users. Not only Palm, but the software developers themselves cannot afford to develop code that only works with less than 5% of the units on the market.

Unless lack of color = outdated to you, your Visor will be fine for a long time.

[This message has been edited by Kemp (edited 03-10-2000).]

Registered: Dec 1999
Location: Chandler, AZ
Posts: 289

Here is how you should look at the purchase. Determine what you want to do with the unit. Then determine if the software/hardware will suit those needs. If it does, get it, if not (ie, you need color for taking digital pictures with your PDA or something...) then choose another product. Umm.. in anycase, from what I gather, the average lifetime on these units is about 18 months to 2 years.. so like a previous post said, my guess is many software developers will release a color and non-color version of their applications to reach the majority of the palm audience (unless it is a color specific app) for atleast another year or so until more people jump on the color bandwagon..

Joe

Registered: Mar 2000
Location:
Posts: 12

18 months to 2 Years ??

Oh boy !!! And here I was, planning on never buying another organizer for the rest of my life :-)

The PC I bought over a year ago is going to stay. Same with the Visor. Its going to stay. Ive been scrimping for over a year to get a worthwhile PDA... was looking at the PalmIII... then came across this site and Handspring.. and eventually bought a GVD.

Very happy with it and intend to stay with it... now only if my batteries lasted longer.... :-)

Have been pondering over NiMH... will maybe switch to those.....

Registered: Mar 2000
Location: Petaluma, CA
Posts: 1

I want to upgrade my workhorse Palm Personal (that has been upgraded to a Palm III). I'd love to get a Visor, but when I look at the software incompatability list, I see that a lot of the software and hacks that I use are on there. I think I'd enjoy the Visor more (love the expandability) than the Palm IIIxe, which I see as the main alternative, but I don't want the hassle of dealing with crashes and endlessly hunting down compatible upgrades for the software. Too, I'd have to upgrade to Win 98 or buy a serial synch cradle.

So I'm thinking of going with the Palm. Can you help me sort this out?

Thanks in advance!

John

Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 94

JohnR,

Could you post the incompat. list? I run a lot of hacks right now, menuhack, batteryhack, dragdrop, invert, phlegm, popme, tealecho/glance/magnify/rescript, select hack. In addition to a lot of "usual suspect" programs like isilo, handbase, launcher, handyshopper. And no real problems with resetting etc.

So far the only thing forcing a soft reset is the scrolling problem in AvantGo, but that seems to be a problem with AvantGo with all the reports about it, it's also really intermittent.

Minh

Registered: Mar 2000
Location: Roseville, MN, USA
Posts: 161

You can find the incompatibility list at:
http://www.visorcentral.com/silindex.php3