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GORDYmac · Sep 20, 2000, 08:56 AM

Here are the C|net and ZDNet links.

I've waited long enough. A Visor, with the Springboard, Airport, Styilish Design, 16 bit Color, and USB out-the-box, makes this the PDA that Apple refuses to make. $450? Steep, but acceptable.

What do you guys think?

Adam Silver · Sep 20, 2000, 10:17 AM

If you willing to pay that much, why not pay an extra $50 and get an iPAQ Pocket PC?

I know, you don't get a built-in expansion slot (but you can buy one separately) and only 12 bit color, but you do get some nice extras like viewing and editing of Word and Excel files. Besides, why do you need more than 8 bit color for an organizer?

Also, the Visors are boxy, not stylish. A bulkier color model will be any more sleek.

As for me, $450 is more than I am willing to pay for a PDA. I own a Palm IIIxe.

GORDYmac · Sep 20, 2000, 10:50 AM

I find HandSpring's designs impressive, the iMac inspiration is a plus.

For me, Mac compatability is paramount. Palm has already committed Palm Desktop for OS X, and HandSpring is Mac ready out of the box. PocketPC doesn't even pretend to Mac compatable.

I like the higher color depth because of two reasons, pictures and the eyemodule SpringBoard.

I'm not sure how successful it'll be, but "if they ship it, I will buy."

Adam Silver · Sep 20, 2000, 04:50 PM

There's always Virtual PC and SoftWindows.

escher · Sep 23, 2000, 01:41 PM

Originally posted by Adam Silver:
There's always Virtual PC and SoftWindows.

Sure. You can also stand on your head and spin.

Have you actually connected a Pocket PC to your Mac via VPC? If not, the investment of $500 for the iPaq and $300 for VPC would be quite a leap of faith.

------------------
"The only laptop computer that's useful is the one you have with you."
Let's have a 3 lbs sub-PowerBook with AirPort and 5 hour battery life now!

Adam Silver · Sep 23, 2000, 02:09 PM

Never tried it, but I assume that it would work because Virtual PC 3 (with Windows 98 or Windows 2000 and Mac OS 9) supports USB devices.

But it wouldn't be the most elegant solution. It would be nice if Microsoft added real Mac support.

Where do you see $300 for Virtual PC? At Outpost.com, it's $180 with Windows 98 and $240 with Windows 2000.

[This message has been edited by Adam Silver (edited 09-23-2000).]

GORDYmac · Oct 16, 2000, 10:52 AM

I hereby take back everything I said above. It may be for some, but not for me.

ussfolsom · Oct 16, 2000, 04:37 PM

Reasons?

ibookuser2 · Oct 16, 2000, 06:30 PM

I think Visor Prism is going to be replacing my PalmPilot Professional soon. I was going for the IIIc, but when you look at it, the fact that the visor runs usb-native and that you have to pay at least an extra 50 dollars for the usb adapter for the palm, the extra features pay for themself easily. I am looking forward to syncing my palm with my KLSE, my q700 is starting to get really slow (or it seems that way...)

GORDYmac · Oct 18, 2000, 09:41 AM

Reasons?

First, the boosted the color depth without boosting the resolution, it seems like all of that processor power is wasted. Instead of "50%performance boost with color", I would have preferred "improved performance with color and improved resolution." Next, I don't like the design. It looks like something Dell would make. I was expecting case color options.

I'm not bitter, just patient. My device will come, someday.

Scott_H · Oct 18, 2000, 05:38 PM

I guess you could do sub pixel rendering for these things. That should boost the resolution a bit.

I have a Visor and love it. I'm so glad I got it over the Palm. It's made for the Mac and Handspring give a, ummmm, hoot about Mac users.

ussfolsom · Oct 19, 2000, 12:13 AM

What do you mean sub-pixel rendering? How would that display anything more on the screen? Also the apps would have to be written for higher res in order to look any better.

If I had $450 to spend I would get the Prism. The case isn't that much different from the Visor Deluxe, except for the odd curve towards the bottom on the back. I have to agree on the case color issue, I wish they made it the same color as my blue Deluxe. I don't like opaque colors (probably due to Apple brain washing). A 65,000 color display make me drool!

Oct 27, 2000, 09:54 AM

Personally I wouldn't buy an iPaq, I think it's ugly, and I am not a fan of "PocketPC." I do like the Casio E-100 and E-105 with the older Windows CE, using VPC on my iMac. I'm looking into one of those, a Palm IIIc or a Prism. On pricewatch.com, I've seen Palm IIIc's as low as the mid $200 range.

Maybe I got lucky, but I found Virtual PC 3.0 for DOS several months ago, for $79. Then I installed Windows 95, and later upgraded to Windows 98 (95 was faster, but I couldn't make a net connection through the shared IP function, which worked under 98).

Why spend several hundred to let Connectix install Windows for you, unless you have no access to a Windows disk?

>Have you actually connected a Pocket PC to your Mac via VPC? If not, the >investment of $500 for the iPaq and $300 for VPC would be quite a leap of >faith.

Scott_H · Oct 27, 2000, 01:23 PM

What do you mean sub-pixel rendering?

One an LCD the red green and blue pixels are placed close to one another but not right on top of one another. For example. RGBRGBRGB but the system used them kind a like this [RGB][RGB][RGB] and does not take into account the physcical displacement in the color channels. It only requires a little post processing of the display image to get it to work.
http://grc.com/cleartype.htm