Registered: Oct 1999
Location:
Posts: 82

O.K. The 3c is out. And it is great...I played with it. Any guesses(educated or not) as to the release of a Colour Visor?

Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 1571

hey intraman:

I wouldn't be surprise if Handspring brings out its own colour visor by teh end of the year... in time for Christmas? Adding to this, I think they will try to up the ante on Palm's colour unit...lighter? thinner? better screen? I can see the visor gettting better in terms of versatility, functioanlity and size as newer versions are released.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Sydney Australia
Posts: 1883

I'm not to sure about that....
Would 3com license their color Palm OS??

Right now they have the advantage over the 'clone companies' by being the only one to over a color palm...

It would be great if handspring would deliver a color visor... but I guess we will have to wait and see..

Registered: Jan 2000
Location:
Posts: 14

I was watching FrontLine the other night on our local PBS station and they were reviewing several PDAs(visor, PalmIIIc, etc.).

They then said that 3com had just licensed it's color OS to Handspring.

We may get a color visor sooner than we think!

Wes

Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 1571

Klaymen:

Great Info. I suspect that Handpsring's next visor release will have colour.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Hillsboro, OR, USA
Posts: 64

I don't think it's so much the OS, but the fact that Palm has spent the past months/years working on a color unit, while Handspring has just been working to get their unit out the door. We will see a color Visor, but only when they're ready, just like Palm.

Registered: Dec 1999
Location:
Posts: 119

Recently I saw an article comparing Apple to Palm -- and saying that the big mistake Apple made was not licensing their OS to outsiders -- and look what happened! Microsoft was able to conquer the world. This article said Palm was being a lot smarter than Apple had been, and was licensing their OS. That way they can ensure that the Palm OS remains the OS of choice for handheld devices. They don't want to sit on their technology like a dog in the manger and let Microsoft come up with something that may be inferior, but will still sweep the category. So it seems that if there is a color OS, Palm will license it to Handspring! Yeah for the good guys!

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Lincoln, NE
Posts: 56

I have a feeling that HS was just using the Visor Deluxes to "pee on the tree" while it was developing a color unit and more advanced features. This is why they were so caught off gaurd when they got so many orders. I think they have discovered that the sweet spot for PDA pricing is right around $250 the hard way. I am sure that HS has been working on wireless networking and color since the day they left palm.

Registered: Jan 2000
Location:
Posts: 14

I think that if Palm has just "licensed" the Color Os, that we're about to see a release from Handspring. I mean, like bolson said, Handspring has had to have this thing in development before they even released the Visor1.

They have probably been using the Os for along time on there "beta" devices... and now that they're preparing to release they finally got it licensed (think happy thoughts and maybe we'll see something soon! :-)

Wes

Registered: Nov 1999
Location: Kennett Square, PA, USA
Posts: 26

Well you guys...I dont know whether or not to get this color Visor whenever it comes out. I think that Palm and Handspring are going to have to work pretty damn hard to keep in the race despite Palm's user base. Personally, I think that when we get a wireless telecommunications standard accepted by all the cell providers, that Palm is done for (so is M$ in that case) because Europe already has great PDA's that have the technological advantages of winCE or whatever it's called these days, and the simplicity of use of the PalmOS. However, the fact that makes this so overwhelming for Palm is that these devices are free with a monthly wireless service plan! The cell phone is directly attached to the PDA. On top of that, the OS is running Java which is cross-platform and already is popular allowing many developers to code for it.

Besides this device, Samsung's Yopy running LINUX (of all things) is sub $500 and has all the features and is actually MORE powerful hardware wise than winCE without the terrible interface designed for a desktop computer. Check out some of these pics




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Cool huh?
I personally am planning to get one of these guys when it comes out...for sub $500 it should be awesome!

Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 1571

This Linux PDA does look awesome....but do you think it will catch on? It does look pretty big for a PDA.... and in the PDA market, the smaller is it the better .

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Metro Station, Hollywood and Highland
Posts: 1018

Jon,

Great pix! Thanks. But I have serious reservations about the Yopi, despite my preference for open source platforms. It shares the WINCE design philosophy of featuritis. Maybe I'll think differently after giving one a test drive, but I anticipate that if it has a Linux kernel running X *and* a window manager, it's going to be s-l-o-w.

On the plus side, if it's open source (assuming Samsung doesn't -- like Corel, Caldera and others -- try to find loopholes in the GNU General Public License) then the code will be available to everyone. I'd really dig a Linux Springboard to hack.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location:
Posts: 82

Look closer, The Yopy has a "start" button on screen aka CE...YUCK!

Registered: Nov 1999
Location: Kennett Square, PA, USA
Posts: 26

Actually, that was just a pre production model pic. The real window manager from what ive heard is going to be either a stripped down KDE or Gnome(no titlebar images or other processor intensive things). I doubt they're gonna run fvwm or fvwm95 like in the original pics....so dont worry about the START button being there for long.