GameBoy for grown-ups? (Handspring Visor Deluxe)

Member Name: naturenet

Product:	Handspring Visor Deluxe
Date:	14/08/01 (170 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, easy, connects to stuff

Disadvantages: Needs Win98, uses batteries and won't recharge them

Which PDA to buy? An agonising choice. Also not, I’m sorry to say, a choice I’m going to be able to help you with very much. Like most people, I’ve just got one PDA, and until I dig up the pot of gold I wouldn’t expect to buy any more for quite a while.
However, I can tell you a bit about the one I do have, as I did choose this one over all others. Why? Now, that subject I can be more forthcoming about. Read on to discover my reasons. I’ll also reveal the big reason not to buy one. I won’t however, be giving you all the technical specs and features, you can read several other excellent opinions on this subject for that.

You may have noticed it's got the most ridiculous name. I mean, if you told your elderly relatives that you’d just bought a Handspring Visor Deluxe, you might well expect them to laugh nervously, and start edging away from you. It sounds very much like some 1950’s health appliance, or a bondage session (whatever that is). What, these days, is really called ‘Deluxe’ with a straight face any more? It’s rather appealing, if you ask me. There is a non-deluxe version which is slightly cheaper and with considerably less memory; but I can’t really see why anyone would want one unless they really are on the tightest budget – in which case they shouldn’t be wasting it on a PDA.

Now, a few words about the Palm OS, which no doubt would apply to all Palm compatible devices. The Visor is a fully Palm-compatible device, so you are not getting some cheapo version of the Palm OS, but the real thing in full. Anything that works on a Palm, will work on this. I was new to all this handheld stuff, and I discovered pretty soon that Palm OS is to portable devices what Windows is to PCs. This means that there are simply stacks of third-party software packages, including mountains of shareware and freeware, all waiting to be downloaded. What’s more, if anyt
hing (like a text file or image) is formatted for a PDA, you can bet it will work on a Palm. There are some other operating systems, notable the entertainingly-named WinCE, but right now Palm OS is the big one. It is as easy as anything to use if you are familiar with the concept of icons and buttons, and it is no exaggeration to say that my 4-year old son can navigate around it reasonably well. Text entry is unusual at first, but you soon get the hang of it, and there is an on-screen keyboard option if you really need it. It also has a rather nostalgic feel. The black-and-white low-res screen, the scrolling text and the lack of images seem to transport me back to a simpler time, when we used to gather around and warm our hands on a friend’s ZX81 during lunchtimes. If that rings a bell for you, take further heart from the fact that the entire operating system is 34kb in size, and many of the programs are 10kb or smaller. Happy days. If you are younger than 30 this probably won’t mean much to you, so do move along.

So, why put your Palm OS in a Handspring rather than anything else? Firstly, and this is the big one, it is cheap. You get good value from these products, as the functionality is exactly the same as is found in larger and more expensive items. It does look a bit lightweight, and maybe gives the impression of being a bit flimsy, but so far I havn’t even managed to scratch it, and in hardware terms everything has worked first time, every time. It looks OK too. Other PDAs do look a bit boring and black, whereas these ones do not. Mine looks more like a Gameboy. I like that.

The other great feature, and the one that sold it to me, is the ability to synchronise with MS Outlook. If you use an Outlook diary and are ever obliged to leave your desk you cannot be without a Visor. It is simply the best available way to carry your Outlook desktop around with you, and that is what it amounts to. Other programmes (e.g. Lotus, GroupWis
e and others) apparently do the same with a Visor but I havn’t tried them. Now other PDAs can do this, I know, but this one has style. A simple and visually sympathetic cradle plugs into your USB port, and you just put the Visor in, press one button, and the job is done. The software to do this is no problem at all to install. Any fool can do it, and, friends, I know.

Now we come to the downside. Why leave this thing on the shelf? One good reason which nearly foxed me is that to use a USB port you need Windows 98. In fact, even if you have some clever drivers to use USB with other Windows versions the Handspring software will definitely only work on Windows 98 and above. So if you don’t have Win98, plan to install it before using this machine, and cost your purchase accordingly. If you have to buy a new OS you might find another PDA works out cheaper after all.

This machine is easy and fun to use, and works well. It really helps me in my work, and can be quite entertaining along with it. Assuming you do have Win98, and you use MS Outlook, then I have to say that you cannot do better for your money than this.

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