Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Worcester
Posts: 34

Upgrade to Visor prism questions

I currently have a Visor Deluxe. My wife has a Visor Pro (2 MB of memory). We are both thinking about upgrading to the Visor prism, but have a few questions.

1) The battery life seems a little low. 6 hours of continuous use doesn't seem like a lot, but then I don't really know how long normal batteries would last with continuous use.

2) If we want to upgrade, what is the best way to transfer program? Will we have to re-install everything, or can we just sync our Prisms (we have backup buddy running) and they will transfer. Are there any programs that we have to re-install color versions for? (I assume we would probably have to check program by program)

3) In general, is this a recommended upgrade? Color would be nice, but in no way is essential to what we do (use Visors for appoinments, etc).

Any help would be appreciated.

Chris

Registered: Apr 2002
Location: New York City
Posts: 234

I upgraded too...

If you have back up buddy you are fine...the incentive for me to get the prism was the fact that it comes with a camera for free and I have to tell you that it's cool!!! I already had an eyemodule2 with my edge and that worked good too but now I can take color mini pictures and color mini movies...how great is that...Also most new software is color enabled too and if you pretty much updated all of your applications in your visor like I have then you are fine...most of your applications will be color and I'm telling you color is god damn cool...also city time in color is to be seen...I love my visor prism...what mocules do you have?
Cheers and good luck.

Registered: Oct 2001
Location: Macau
Posts: 52

I have to agree that it is wonderful to have color, if not essential. The battery life of 6 hours is actually not bad under most circumstances, and a battery plug for emergencies is great for long trips and other situations where you really need to use if for more than six hours and have no access to electricity. If your batteries now are lasting several weeks, you probably won't notice the change as long as you just recharge every night. I suspect that if you were using more than six hours per day, you would know it. The main thing is to keep the brightness down as low as you can. If the brightness is up around 3/4 (which I think is the factory setting), batteries run down amazingly quickly. I usually have brightness set around 1/4 and it is more than bright enough for indoors.

I did find when I upgraded from a deluxe that I needed to reinstall some programs. For some reason, a few of my saved settings or programs were causing the prism to crash. Unfortunately, I don't remember which. With backup buddy it is easy to make a copy of your backup directory, delete any programs you suspect might be a problem in the real backup directory, then try syncing again.

Registered: Jul 2001
Location: The Netherlands
Posts: 47

Upgrading from Dlx to Prism

I upgraded from a Dlx to a Prism just a month ago and used my backup springboard for transferring the files. No problem!
When you start the restore, you'll see a warning that you're about to transfer to another handheld, but just ok that.
Before making the "last" backup on the Dlx, make sure to delete the upgrade patch to Palm OS 3.1H2 (If you ever did that ofcourse). When this patch is restored to the Prism it will crash...
After all, the whole procedure was painless.

As for the battery: I am kind of a low-battery-paranoid.....When I got my Prism I also bought the Travel Charger from Handspring and even the BattPlug from www.visorsolutions.com. This small device enables you to charge the Prism with AA or AAA batteries in case of emergency.
Handspring has a document on the best usage of the batteries somewhere on the FAQ's. The LiIon battery of the Prism doesn't like to be drained completely and must be topped off frequently. I made it a habit to put the Prism in the charger/cradle at night and so far hadn't any problems.
Ofcourse the battery drain depends on the usage and applications. Don't forget to adjust the brightness to 1/4!

It still enjoy the Prism. Besides the nice colors it also can do more, because of the faster processor and its Palm OS 3.5 offers better VFS abilities.

Hope this helps a bit. Good luck..

Registered: Apr 2002
Location: Reading, England
Posts: 6

As a long time prism owner I would say the biggest downside to it is the poor visability of the screen in sunlight. I would happily trade my prism for a pro to be able to read my contacts list etc without having to make a shadow, turn brightness up to max, and hunch over the screen if I'm outside and it isn't overcast.

Registered: Aug 2000
Location: South Carolina
Posts: 1062

Re: Upgrade to Visor prism questions

quote:

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Originally posted by cvitek
Color would be nice, but in no way is essential to what we do (use Visors for appoinments, etc).

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Registered: Nov 2001
Location:
Posts: 12

I just went through the same upgrade from the visor deluxe to the prism and have been very pleased so far. I would agree with the comments above about color and other performance improvements making the experience much better than I expected. The battery life seems pretty good to me. I've used the Full Charge with the Deluxe for the last year and have been very happy with the result, but the Prism seems to hold a charge much longer. As for viewing in sun light, it really depends on how you will use the prism. In my case the bright screen indoors and in dimmer lighting outweighs the con. I upgraded my files through a sync and this worked ok with the exception of some programs that wouldn't work on the Prism anyway. Good luck!