Registered: Sep 1999
Location:
Posts: 5

First let me say I'm not a patient person. When I see a gadget I like, I'll get it within a few days. I tend to feel kinda edgy if I don't. Now the problem: I ordered a Visor Deluxe (Graphite)! No confirmation. No update on website. No REAL news on the shipping date. Every post I read in this forum contradicts one another. I'm beginning to feel like I'm being thrown around like some cheap ball. I feel like Handspring is not treating their customers with due respect. At least they should put a small announcement on their website informing us of their progress. It only takes 5 minutes to do it. Is it that difficult? Are they really that busy? Handspring, don't take things for granted!
I suggest putting up a poll so that we can vote on our degree of unhappiness towards their attitude.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Seattle, WA, USA
Posts: 37

I agree and I have cancelled my order of a blue VD... Heck, this site is more together than Handspring's, and this isn't even the webmaster's primary job in life! For god's sake! I guess I'm going WinCE after all...

-Joshua

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Seattle, WA, USA
Posts: 37

I agree and I have cancelled my order of a blue VD... Heck, this site is more together than Handspring's, and this isn't even the webmaster's primary job in life! For god's sake! I guess I'm going WinCE after all...

-Joshua

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Hong Kong
Posts: 200

Right!

Same for me (plus having the additonal problem of not living in the US of A). I would have bough a Visor if it was available right away. But my experience with new products is that delay is quite possible. Remember Windows?

After I got an offer for an 2nd hand IIIx with 8Mb I just bought it.

Now I have all the patience I need to see what is coming out!

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Salem, OR, USA
Posts: 91

This is ridiculous! Visors are shipping in one week, with confirmations going out three days in advance.

No REAL news on the shipping date.

quote:

---

Visor Handheld Will Ship In October
(09/30/99, 6:57 p.m. ET)
By Mo Krochmal, TechWeb
NEW YORK -- The Visor handheld computer will ship sooner than announced, the company said Wednesday.

The new handheld computer, developed by key members of the team that founded Palm Pilot and later sold it to 3Com, will ship in two weeks, Jeff Hawkins, chairman of Mountain View, Calif.-based Handspring said at the PricewaterhouseCoopers 1999 Global Convergence Summit conference in New York.

---

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Hong Kong
Posts: 200

Bigdog, I am sure there will be a positve announcement during the Internet fair 6-8.10.

That's TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Registered: Sep 1999
Location:
Posts: 179

I think everyone forgets that they really didn't "order" a Visor that they were told they would have in a few days. Everyone, so far, has only "reserved" an order for a Visor that would ship sometime this month. Not a single person here has said they have been charged for anything.

Handspring has not promised one thing that they have failed to follow through on...so, lets all be a little more patient. Those of you who have cancelled your orders might be sorry in a few days.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Austin, Texas, USA
Posts: 195

I must agree with Handsprung. I have been told by the sales reps for Handspring that I should have my Visor Deluxe next week. I placed my order back on Sept. 14th, and knew that I would be in for a wait. Even back then, they were saying that the Visor would begin shipping in mid October. I come from the gaming industry, and let me tell you that it is extremely rare that a new game, or any other new piece of software for that matter, ships on time. MOST new software is delayed for a few months, and frequently, it is delayed for almost a year. So, that may have affected my mindset about this, but I'm extremely pleased that the Visor is shipping when they said it would - even a little earlier.

All good things to those who wait.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Spokane, WA, USA
Posts: 114

Bigdog, put your order back in. Stop acting like a spoiled child. Maybe you need to take a course in "Delayed Gratification".

Yes, I'm a little anxious for my Visor Deluxe to get here, but they originally told me "mid- to late-October." IT'S THE 6TH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! TAKE IT EASY! You still have over a week before we reach the "middle" of October.

And as for you, HipHop... You're a happy IIIx-owning Palm guy now. Fine. Are you just going to stick around and complain about Handpspring, their customer service, website and whatever else you can think of? While I can respect freedom of speech, I think you really ought to try to be a little useful. If not, go to a Palm discussion board and be "useful" there.

How old are all these users anyway? Quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to understand...

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 90

Hey, I'm deep in waiting-for-Christmas-morning mode myself, but I agree that there's no call for panic or feeling betrayed just yet!

(1) No delivery date promises have been broken to date.

(2) Reports from CSRs about *exactly* when orders are shipping are inconsistent - but they don't vary by more than two weeks! And no one has yet been told that theirs will ship later than October - as originally promised when product was announced in September.

(3) It's quite clear that they held off on confirming shipping, enabling online ordering, or anything concrete until the big launch at Internet World - which all went forward, as scheduled, today - the 6th. Not even a week into October. All as expected.

So far I feel pretty confident about this company delivering as promised. It's led by a crackerjack management team (the folks who invented the Palm, brought it to market AND made it the fastest-selling consumer electronics introduction of ALL TIME), it's extremely well-capitalized, and all the product reviews I've seen have been overwhelmingly favorable.

So what grounds, exactly, do we have for hysteria??

Registered: Sep 1999
Location:
Posts: 23

Hey HipHop, I just found out that the person who sold you their Palm IIIx. Used the Money for a Visor Deluxe.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Hong Kong
Posts: 200

Chuck, you make me chuckle!

I have a IIIx but he still has no Visor and god knows when he will!

(but seriously, Visor or IIIx are too close to be dissapointed by one or the other. They do exactly the same thing to me. Ok, you can buy IIIx now for $220 - but whatever high tech stuff you buy will be near worthless the next year)

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Birmingham, AL
Posts: 103

What HipHop? "but whatever high tech stuff you buy will be near worthless the next year"
are you going to go off into Y2K hysteria now???

Registered: Sep 1999
Location:
Posts: 5

DKantola, in this time and age, you should know better that anything else other the one coming from the manufacturers themselves is NOT REAL news. Don't tell me you trust EVERYTHING you read?

How old are all these users anyway? Quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to understand...
Chazz, what has age gotta do with that? Don't tell me you're that OLD?

By the way, if you guys read my post carefully, I did not mention anything about cancelling my order. I was merely expressing my anger. I think that a company should be responsible to its customer. I don't mind the wait, but at least I need to be informed of a date, any date.

Reading the posts so far just makes me laugh. It seems to me that people are willing to order a product, pray hard that the company will not bust, that the product will actually ship, get really excited when any piece of news pop up anywhere, and even get pissed when somebody says anything bad about the company or want to cancel the order! All this when they haven't even touch or seen the product themselves yet! I have a feeling that when these people get their product, many will be disappointed and many will regret. Then we'll start to see plenty of disappointment posts in this forum. And I won't be surprised that they are actually coming from these heroic people! What a mature world!

But all this argument will come to an end soon, because Handspring has just revamped its website. Hopefully, they will fulfill their promise.

[This message has been edited by bigdog (edited 10-06-1999).]

[This message has been edited by bigdog (edited 10-06-1999).]

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 90

As someone who has been on the other side of the fence (i.e. trying to get a product shipped on time) I can confirm that it's much better to be somewhat cagey than to make a promise that you later don't deliver on. "Sometime in October" may be frustratingly vague, but why promise "No later than October 14," or something, when any minor glitch in delivery (storm, traffic jam, not enough boxes) may cause you to miss that exact date?

If you can't handle any degree of uncertainty about the exact date you'll get the product, well then don't pre-order a new product. Walk over to Office Depot and buy a Palm off the shelf. Nobody is forcing you to live dangerously!

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Streamwood, IL USA
Posts: 118

Wow! odering something has just been referred to as "living dangerously"

I think we could all take a step back and review. If you don't want to wait for a Visor, tough.

If you have that much trouble with waiting for a pre-order, wait until the product is shipping then order.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Salem, OR, USA
Posts: 91

whatever high tech stuff you buy will be near worthless the next year

So then HipHop, do you think a Palm III made by your beloved 3Com is worthless? Then again, you probably do. Last year Donna, Jeff, and Ed were at the top of Palm Computing. I suppose when they left you considered Palm cleansed so they could go on to create the great Palm IIIx, V, and... ugh... VII

DKantola, in this time and age, you should know better that anything else other the one coming from the manufacturers themselves is NOT REAL news. Don't tell me you trust EVERYTHING you read?

Manufacturers frequently release information about their products at conferences and in wire stories. Most likely the reason they didn't issue the official press release you'd like is the lack of any demand for it. Apparently the consensus from the CSRs (they should be reporting the exact same info though) is that the first units will be shipping this Friday and the beginning of next week, earlier than first announced. It would definitely be unwise to let customers expect a Visor earlier than announced unless they were absolutely sure it would ship on time. It appears Handspring has been playing it safe for the past three weeks with the mid-to-late October date, and now that the warehouse has the Visors they are confident with announcing the earlier date that they planned all along. This whole discussion will be a non-issue next week when we who ordered early receive our Visors.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Modesto, CA USA
Posts: 599

The only promise broken has been email notification within about a week. That didn't happen for a variety of reasons:
One Visor initially wasn't going to take orders with the initial web page on Sept. 14th but just like the rest of us..they got greedy when the response was so large that they patched together an interim system.
Not ideal but for those of you who are jumping ship to Windows CE devices...I'd start shopping for some less than intelligent individual to sell it too when you change your mind back.

With Phillips getting out of the CE market I'd say they odds are probably pretty good the others will get out. Why? well MS decided to liscense the technology of CE to multiple vendors in an attempt to quickly capture market share away from Palm and now Visor. That didn't happen! Why because MS and CE can't keep pace with the individuality that the Palm OS allows in software and now with the Visor...Hardware - accessories.

I've got an old Casio E-10 that I can't give away...anybody want to make me a down and dirty offer?

[This message has been edited by RSGMOOSE (edited 10-07-1999).]

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Hong Kong
Posts: 200

Little misunderstandings!

What I wanted to say:

"Whatever hightech stuff you buy you have to accept a high devaluation"

You can interpret that also as:

"If you wait for a better price you will never buy anything"

I don't really believe in the Y2K hysteria. We here in Amishland have other priorities.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Bel Air, MD
Posts: 41

I'm not a patient person like BigDog when I see something I want I want it now not next month. I knew when I PRE-ORDERED a Visor that I was in for a month (or so) wait and resigned myself to live with that. I did not call CS back until yesterday, mostly because the original call took 1.25 hours and I wasn't ready to sit on hold that long again.

But I do have one gripe. On the Handsprings home page is a link to signup for a EMail news letter. This news letter advertises itself to "Be the first to know...". Well I've gotten plenty of NEWS about Handspring and the Visor (i.e. "Visor will ship by Oct. 15", Taking orders online" ...) but I have yet to see the news letter or even a confirmation that the newsletter exists. Whats up with this?

As for the order confirmation I've heard too many stories at this point to even try to figure whats happening there. I ordered my Visor on a debit card so I will know when it has been shipped and I can live with that. It would have been nice though to have the chance to change the shipping to priority and add some accessories, that by the way I was not given the chance to PRE-ORDER, but thats the breaks.

After all of that I guess what I'm tring to say is that I agree with Handsprung. "Handspring has not promised one thing that they have failed to follow through on...so, lets all be a little more patient."

SUPERvisor