Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 2

Hi folks,
I have had a computer for years but am new to the Handheld world. I am in the market for a Handheld and have been reseaching them. I was about to make the purchase of a Visor Deluxe until I read this article.

Can anyone give me feedback on this. It seems to make sense. I have edited out this persons last name and e-mail address so he won't get blasted.

Please send feedback to my e-mail address: [email protected]

Name: Jason M.
Email:
Location: Miami, FL
Occupation: programmer

Visor isn't perfect (sigh)

As the content (but not ecstatic) owner of a Visor Deluxe, I need to point out something very important -- the Visor's OS is in ROM, and Handspring has neither promised, nor shown any real interest, in providing Visor owners with a way to upgrade to newer versions of Palm OS (like ram-loaded OS updates).


Today, the main implication of Handspring's lack of committment to providing ram-loaded PalmOS upgrades is that Visors lack support for Enhanced IR. Tomorrow (well, metaphorically speaking, anyway, more like 2 or 3 months from now), it means that Visors will still be stuck with 1-bit graphics while everyone else will get to enjoy 4-bit grayscale support at the OS level.


Is there any technical reason why this needs to be the case? No. There's no reason why Handspring couldn't release a ram-loaded version of PalmOS 3.5 that would just eat a few megs of RAM and prod the Visor into ignoring the old obsolete version in ROM and running the new version from RAM instead. Have they indicated that there's even the slightest chance in hell that they actually plan to do it? No. Have they made any effor to make Enhanced IR available to Visor owners? No.


Maybe I'm being a little harsh, but so far Handspring has done nothing whatsoever to give me any faith in their commitment to making PalmOS updates available to Visor owners in any kind of timely manner (or for that matter, at all).


It's ironic, but the Palm-compatible PDA widely proclaimed to be the most powerful and most expandable of all is really the most likely to be functionally obsolete as a viable PalmOS device by the end of summer and end up making itself useful as a programmable home theater remote control -- if we're lucky.


I fell for the hype and believed that the Visor really was the Perfect Palm, and becoming disillusioned over the past few months hasn't been a happy experience.

Registered: Nov 1999
Location: Wichita, Kansas USA
Posts: 14

For every person who writre something discourging about the Visor you will find 100s who are very happy. I've had mine since early december and use it 2-3 hours every day.

Early on in this forum someone wrote that if the held the visor up to the light and looked real hard they could find what they thought was a defect in the manufacture of the Visor. It wasn't.

One answer that was given (I paraphrase because I don't remember the exact words) Gee, if you hold it under a 95 watt bulb at a 27.56 degree angle to the horizon you can see a .001mm long crack in a corner....

You get the idea. there are some people who are never satisfied.

Get a Visor Delux. There are 1000s of free or very inexpensive programs avaialable for it.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Valparaiso, IN
Posts: 146

tecwritr,

It's true that there are more people who are happy with their Visor than those who aren't. I agree with you on that. However, that wasn't the issue that was brought up here.

The issue is will the Visor be able to support the new features of future Palm OS releases like 3.5? That's the question here, not if 100's of folks love their Visor compared to every 1 or 2 who don't.

IMHO, one of the main reasons I decided not to get a Visor, but instead to upgrade my IIIx was my concern over flash ROM. Since then, I've already been able to upgrade to 3.3, and later in the month, I will be able to upgrade to 3.5.

Just my .02

Also, regarding your comment regarding manufacturing defects, there have been MANY problems with Visor cases cracking and crumbling. Perhaps the individual who said that holding their Visor up to the light revealed a small crack was realling seeing a sign of things to come.

Registered: Dec 1999
Location: Connecticut USA
Posts: 2682

It seems, as in every facet of life, that people tend to listen to the nay-sayer's more than the satisfied ones.

The Visor has taken a "bad" rap on boards such as this. I fully agree that for every dissatisfied user there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of satisfied ones. Consider this... VisorCentral has (as of this moment) 2,636 registered users. The Visor Received Log currently shows 725 units as of 2/4/00. Now, if this was ALL Visor's Handspring shipped then I'd say there's some validity to all the complaints. However, I've heard that HS is shipping thousands of units per week. This means that that opinions seen here on VC represent those of a very small percentage of Visor owners.

I'm curious about what the early owners of the original Palm had to say when it was released. Were there cracks and scratches and resets, etc?... or did it work flawlessly from day one? Hmmmm....

Anyway, as a first-time PDA user, I saw something in the price/performance mix that attracted me to the Visor. The expandability through Springboard's was also a major point in my considerations.

Granted, I've only had mine for 17 days (who's counting?), but I've thus far been impressed with it's overall usability. Sure, I've had some software problems (probably my own doing), and yes, I have a nasty scratch on my screen (again, my fault... don't put your Visor in your pocket with your keys!!!). But the Visor has done everything I bought it to do and then some.

I guess what I'm really trying to say here is that you can never satisfy EVERYONE. We all need to come to our own conclusions about which product is right for us. Remember, we all don't drive the same vehicles, use the same household products, or read the same books... why should PDA's be any different?

------------------
MarkEagle - Ice is nice!

Registered: Dec 1999
Location:
Posts: 74

Ahem,

Getting back to the original intent of this post. I think that HandSpring might produce a rammable 3.5 OS if it feels the demand is high enough. I'm sure the've adopted a wait and see attitude - the new Palms aren't even on the shelves yet. If they were to announce that they were working on this now, it would indicate that their original design that did not include Flash was flawed. I think it's too early too tell if 3.5 will bring any real advantage to a monocrome display.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Texan in Calgary for a while
Posts: 1361

bengrim,

I'm not sure where you read that article, but I know that I do not want to sacrifice ~2MB of RAM just so that my icons on the app launcher are in greyscale.

Today, you can go to www.iscomplete.com and install IrLink so you can sync over Ir. 19.95 and a few KB for a feature that most users do not need.

RAM updates: there is nothing stopping Handspring from releasing any RAM patches to support Ir or fix any bugs in the Visor's OS. The Visor has only been out for a few months, so I'm sure HS will eventually release a patch. Besides, Palm released only 2-3patches for PalmOS 3.0 in the 2+ yrs it has been out.

OS 3.5: Yes, there are some really nice features in OS 3.5 that would be great on a Visor. Are Visors "stuck" in the past? Of course not. Developers are not going to alienate Visor users. There are still apps made daily that work with PalmOS 2.x.



------------------
James Hromadka
VisorCentral.com
Personal Website: http://www.Hromadka.com

Registered: Dec 1999
Location:
Posts: 117

what the heck is the big deal about gray scale? Win/ce units had multi gray scale from day one and were blown out of the water by the Palm units. These features consume memory and batteries like crazy.


I am thrilled with my Visor. It eat my Win/ce unit for lunch. Easier to work with, longer battery life, and I dont even notice the lack of gray scale.

oh well thats just my two cents


------------------
Life is to short for boring food

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

quote:

---

Originally posted by bengrim:
...it means that Visors will still be stuck with 1-bit graphics

---

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Mililani, HI, USA
Posts: 256

This message is mainly a response to the article posted initially.

Flash, shlash. There were good and sufficient reasons for not using flash ROM on the Visor. There are still many good reasons to own a Visor. Remember that when the Visor was released its competition were models that were certainly inferior in many ways, with the exception that they had flash ROM. That Palm Computing is soon to release OS 3.5, and is soon to release color, thereby making new units more advanced than the Visor, should not surprise anyone. The Visor was always billed as a handheld unit to be marketed more to the general audience. With such an audience, Flash ROM was not the major consideration--features/cost was. With only one OS flash update since the inception of flash ROM in Palm handhelds, it was reasonable to pass the increased value to the customer at the expense of no flash updates.

Does this mean that the Visor will be "old" when compared to units with flash, OS 3.5, and color? Yes. Does it mean that the Visor will suck? Quite clearly, no! The Visor will still be an very capable unit with a fast processor, lots of memory, and a nifty springboard slot. While the naysayers are on their soapbox (and while I'm on mine), why don't they go full-bore: "The Visor sucks--you can't upgrade the mainboard." "The Visor sucks--you can't upgrade the Dragonball processor." "The Visor sucks--you can't get a better..." You get my drift.

About grayscale: 4 bit grayscale is still grayscale. The major display improvement is color. So there's little use finding fault in the absence of flash ROM when a color screen upgrade is silly and unreasonble. 1 bit grayscale is really quite good. REALLY! Try it. You'll like it! (Mikey does!) :�

About OS upgrades: I'll repeat the comment made by others: Handspring can always release patches to improve OS functionality. And to say that "Handspring has done nothing whatsoever to give me any faith in their commitment to making PalmOS updates available to Visor owners in any kind of timely manner" may be valid, but it's rather premature. Handspring only began selling Visors in October. That's three--count 'em--three months since the grand opening! And we should remember that those three months were botched with problems with which Handspring has had to contend probably at the expense of R&D.

Perfect palm?: Will we ever have a perfect palm? Oh I can hardly wait! When you find it, please let me know, because I'll be the next one-time customer. But for now, I'll settle for "darn good" and wait for the "next big thing."

The author of the article was not only harsh, but unreasonable. We're not talking about a cure for cancer or anything--just a two hundred, fifty dollar handheld computer. (And soon it will cost fewer than two hundred and fifty dollars.)

Face the facts, folks. For $250, you're getting a heck of a lot bang for your buck!

Bengrim,
If flash ROM and color are important to you, and cost/value is less important, then maybe you would be willing wait for the color Palm. Otherwise you'll regret owning the Visor, and I wouldn't advise you to make a purchase that you'd regret. But the Visor is still a very good handheld unit, despite the absence of flash ROM and color.

[This message has been edited by ragamuffinn (edited 02-06-2000).]

Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 3

I just received my Visors in the mail Friday...and of course have been playing with them all week end. I too am new to the PDA world and looked long and hard at 3Com Pilots and at the Handspring. I too read all of the bad stuff, wondering if I should risk the purchase.

I am quite satisfied with the visor. The unit is solid, rugged and looks good. I went out and got me some Palm V stili (sp???) and absolutly love it. All of the software has run fine (USB) and the screen is clear and bright.

Now for the kicker...I already have 6 meg of stuff downloaded into my Visor. Granted I have been playing around just to see what this baby can do, but try that with the IIIx!

My advice: Forget what the critics say or at least take it with a grain of salt. I'm sure that there are faulty units out there...but I didn't get one...and am quite satisfied!

Registered: Jan 2000
Location:
Posts: 434

[edit of my e-mail resonse to bengrim]
re: OS in ROM issue

This might be an issue if there was a real problem with application support for the Visor. There is no issue. Applicaiton support is excellent. Just checkout the limited list of applicaitons that don't (yet) work on the Visor: http://VisorCentral.com/faqindex.php3

Also, if you are worried about being left behind, remember that the majority of Palm apps were designed for the Palm OS v2, and there are some apps that still run on OS v1!! Backwards compatiblity is still important in the Palm world, and I doubt that will change.

re: 1-bit graphics

Handspring claims that the Visor ships with a grayscale screen that is comparable to that used in Palm's handhelds. On the basis of Image Viewer III comparisons with a friend's Palm IIIx, the Visor has the same grayscale graphics abilities as the IIIx (and therefore as the V, Vx, VII and IIIe).

However, if pictures really are your thing, then you probably do want to at least checkout the Palm IIIc. Note that the IIIc will have the same 160x160 screen resolution as all current Palm OS devices (including the Visor).

As someone else said, if you want graphics, then you are really better off looking at a CE device (which, IMHO, is too compromised by trying to be all things to all people - - and therefore does none of them well).

re: Why putting OS in ROM vs. flash memory

If this is such a "bad" idea, why did 3COM do it with the IIIe (and presumably with the IIIxe)? The answer is simple, it keeps the cost down. A worthwhile trade-off given the limited life for any computer in this day and age.

Registered: Dec 1999
Location:
Posts: 46

Look,

I'm as critical of Handspring as anyone...I and still say there's an 80% chance they'll be out of business in a year...

But...I kept my Visor...and I've yet to have any problems...I gripe...because I see HandSpring doing really stupid things...and it annoys me...I'd like them to be around if I need warranty service...

Anyway...who cares about the OS? Let's be honest...we are all going to get the bug to buy a new PDA in about 2 years anyway...right? Buy it, enjoy it...and don't worry about it...leave that to cynics like me!