Handheld Reviews

This PDA is a great entry level model, but it lacks many of the features of higher priced models. It's a great replacement for a paper planner, but don't purchase this model if you're looking to play games (which may be a good thing if you're purchasing it for a student, like me).

If you are tired of having a huge planner, buying replacement pages, and buying pens or pencils, this is the PDA for you. I bought one to replace my worn out monthly planner book.
I LOVE it !!!! It does everything my day planner book did, but much better, smaller, lighter and more fun to use. And you can play some games on them besides. I have checkers,roulette, video poker, Tic-tac-toe, even got my resume on it, and my addresses and phone numbers. The alarm is cool also.
If you want a pda and don't want to spend alot, get the Palm Zire handheld !!!

I purchased this item for my office desk. It is so worth it. I dont know what I would do without it now. A must buy for the business man that needs to see info on his palm with out too much effort. Every thing is right there proped up in front of you.

excellent for the users mobiles that need to always have the palmpilot available while they move in their cars

It fits my 2215 very nicely and is very sturdy but I do have a few small complaints. It doesn't make a tight seal and everytime I pull it out I have to wipe lint off of the screen. Also, it has a slot for an extra SD card (great idea) but when I had a card in it it would scratch up the screen (don't use it anymore). Fortunately I had a skin on the screen but still a bummer. Also, I've had it for a few months now and the cover is starting to get loose (and it's never been dropped). I may use it more than most but I wish is was a little better made. Still, it's better than fabric.

Fits my HP 2215 beautifully and protects it very nicely. Only issue is that you have to take it out of the case to set the Pocket PC in its base, but not a major issue.

I never in a million years thought I would need more than the standard 8MB's of memory my Palm m125 came with...but I was given a rather large wake up call rather quickly. 8MB's IS a lot of memory for a handheld device, b-u-u-u-t depending on how often you rely on your PDA, and for what purpose, well that room can fill up mighty fast.

I did some looking around before I made my decision, and I am QUITE happy I did. There are currently several different multi-media cards (mmc) available on the market, but with help from amazon.com and reviewers who found a better deal, I was spared from spending a whole lot more than I needed to. For instance, you COULD purchase the 16MB card manufactured with the PALM name on it, but you COULD get a 32MB SanDisk card right here on amazon for CHEAPER than the PALM's skimpy 16MB expansion card.
The REAL kicker is that the Palm card's are made BY SanDisk...so you are getting the SAME product, just with a different brand name on front, along with a significant jump in price, too. I bought a 32 and a 16MB card, so I have MORE than enough room for a great deal of stuff.

Now, the downside to buying an expansion card: If you have downloaded ANY copyrighted program to your Palm, you will NOT be able to copy the program to your expansion card in order to free up extra room on your Palm. I bought my cards with the express purpose of doing just that, only to be surprised that NOPE, you just plain CAN'T. I have had to come up with alternate ways of using my cards than the initial reason I bought them for. I have copied EVERYTHING that I CAN over to my cards, especially the stuff that I don't use on a frequent basis. I have managed to free up about 3MB's of room on my Palm, and I have yet to use up more than 4MB's of room on my cards. It's gonna be a while before I'll be able to fill up all that extra space.

One more thing to think about before you dive in and make the purchase: It takes about roughly 1.5 seconds of additional time to access programs you have on the expansion card...so if you are someone with little or no patience, you may want to think about a different option, or maybe a Pocket PC which comes standard with much more memory than the average Palm OS device.
It may not be a lot, but for some people I guarantee it CAN make the difference between making the buy or not. For me it isn't anything more than a microscopic annoyance -- at best. Aside from these concerns, I have been nothing but totally pleased with my purchase. Oh, one more tiny item that I think can and should be addressed with the manufacturers of these expansion cards: Include a User's Manual on how to best use and get the most out of your card. My card came in the plastic container with absolutely NOTHING to tell me how to best use it, or even how to install it. Everything I have learned has come through trial and error over the course of several weeks of constant use. I'm not looking for a dictionary, just a few pages of instructions, shortcuts and ideas can go a long way. Okay, that's it from me. Make your choice and choose wisely...keep in mind that amazon has plenty to pick from...do your research first, and good luck.

You cant complain if it comes free. 16 megs is kind of small for all my digital images though

I got one of these to use with my Jornada 548. I had to switch my service and get the Qualcomm phone to use it, but that was fine with me, the Qualcomm is a real nice light thin phone. You do need to pay extra for web access with the phone, but that does allow you to use the built-in web-browsing on the phone as well, for things like stock quotes and weather.

Installation is easy enough, although you do need to be sure to set the baud rate exactly as mentioned in the manual...usually a modem will adjust it down if you set it to high, but in this case, it just won't dial the phone. Other than that, it works great. However, it is a considerably slower speed than you get with something like the Pretec 56K modem, and of course, you DO have to pay cell phone connect fees. I personally would not want to rely on it solely, whenever I have access to a phone line, a regular modem is best.

I bought this product with a little apprehension due to anticipated (I am very pessimistic) compatability issues. Forget that.

Installation was exceptionally easy and took only a few minutes (for all my devices). I was downloading my e-mail and surfing the Internet via my Qualcomm 860 phone in a matter of minutes. I installed the product onto the following devices: HP Jornada 545 (pocket PC), HP Jornada 690, and a Compaq Presario 1800 series laptop. All devices easily work with the product, zero compatability issues.

This is a great alternative to other dedicated (and expensive) wireless devices such as the Merlin card, provided you have a mobile phone already. Socket includes an adapter that allows you to use the card in your laptop.

The keyboard weighs about the same as the Clie itself. Opens easily and the keys are comfortable to type in.

I only have 2 complaints:
- There're no keys for "Home" or "End". I guess it may not be possible to do this on a PDA, but it would have made navigating through a doc a bit easier.
- The keyboard cannot hook up to an adapter, which means the PDA's battery may run out in the middle of typing, though this seems unlikely.

Still, the complaints are minor, so I rate this as 4 stars.

This keyb is great. With this, and Documents To Go, the handheld is a great laptop replacement handling most wordprocessing and simple spreadsheet applications with ease. The keyb is small, light, and comfortable. The cool factor is very high the way it opens up. And, yes, you do get second glances when sitting in the coffee shop and writing your latest novel. Works really well with the Sony PDAs with 16 Mb ram in them... makes it convenient to store all those documents.

This wallet has some good features. For example, good storage for credit cards and checkbook, 2 pen holders,also seems to be very sturdy and well made. The PDA section is just a little on the big side for my Jornada 547. Approx 2 inches too tall and about 1/2 in. on both sides, not exactly a custom fit but workable. This item does not have a seperate notepad built in like my last wallet, didnt think I would miss it but I do. After trimming off the very long strap that zippers the PDA compartment it doesn't look like the purse it used to. Good product for the most part.

This makes a great gift and isn't designed for any specific PDA (there is more to life than Palm IIIs !!) so even if you have an unconventional model, it'll probably fit.

More than good value for money. Well made unit with all you could need to start using a PDA including cradle support software and easy access to development tools. However, I feel slightly cornered into being restricted to the MS platform. It would be great if they opened the architecture of the device to ease developers and users wanting to utilize Linux etc. Also their support is slightly lacking. I bought my unit a couple months ago and it was supplied with win 2002, yet 2003 has been out considerably longer than a couple of months. One would assume that to keep customer loyalty a free up-grade would be offered.

This little Pocket PC is a handheld wonder! I've never used one of these before -- but it was easy to hook up to my desktop and I was able to adapt to it immediately. I am impressed with this product. If you're in the market for a pocket PC, this is my definite recommendation!

I have this visor. I quit using it after a year. The problem is that it uses batteries... normal use you will get arround a week.
You have to check the batteries even if it has not been used since it consumes batteries. You need to have information stored and updated in your pc AT ALL TIMES, in this way if the information is lost from visor you will be able to recover it-hotsync. Information is usually lost when batteries are low/die.

I replaced it for the sony clie pega tj25 handheld.

For all of you who have or plan to buy this item... Good luck.

PROS:
- Extremely inexpensive
- Not as large as the Prism model
- Simple buttons
- EXCELENTLY designed stylus (reset pin, stylus, and screwdriver combination!)

The Palm OS on the Visor Deluxe is slightly outdated (3.1 instead of 4+) which can cause headaches if you are trying to install newer software. Also, the casing is a little too large to be a pocket item and the unattaching cover can be annoying at times. Those are some general negatives. Besides that I personally had other problems. I was very careful with my Visor and kept the plastic cover on it unless it was in use. Still, under regular, every-day abuse, the screen cracked while it was in my pocket. Replacement was a simple process and Handspring gets 5 stars on service (though it would have been nice if it wouldn't have had to be replaced in the first place). After receiving my replacement, however, I noted that the stylus was not held in place as it should have been while in the visor, which caused the loss of many styli. Sadly, again after much care, the screen of my Visor mysteriously cracked again. Thus, I am now looking into buying a new PDA and probably won't choose a Visor Deluxe this time, being that they don't withstand my handling well. If you choose to purchase a Visor Deluxe, be careful with it and I would recommend investing in a new protective cover other than the standard one provided.

I gave the Palm III XE a 5 star rating. So how can I give the Handspring Visor Deluxe a 5 star rating, too?

That's easy. I love them both.

They both strike a near perfect balance between usability, practicality and portability. The Palm III series seems to fill a niche occupied by early PDA adopters such as myself and business executives. Heck, it's almost part of the business uniform.

The Visor, however, appeals to a different crowd: Power users who, want greater expandability. Mac users, who find it's easier to use a Visor with their Mac. I even know someone who bought one simply because they "look cool."

The Visor has all the advantages of the PalmOS. There are literally thousands of software titles to run on it.

It's got all the advantages of the familiar Palm-type device. Anyone who has used a Palm before can essentially use the Visor immediately -- with a very minimal learning curve. And it's no problem if you haven't used a Palm before. The interface is highly intuitive and rather easy to learn. In five minutes I was up and running like a champ.

The Visor has the added advantages of native USB communication and the incredible versatility of the "Springboard" module. These modules allow the Visor to adopt an amazing number of roles: MP3 player, GPS, wireless PDA and even wireless phone. Of course all the familiar peripherals are also available. There are modems, keyboards, etc...

In my opinion, Handspring has taken the best handheld computing platform on the market and made it even better. I think it's great. It's well done. It's well made and it's easy to use -- even if you just want a simple electronic organizer.

If you're looking for a first PDA -- or want more expandability options than are available for a Palm III device -- I think you will like the Handspring Visor Deluxe.

I have this visor. I quit using it after a year. The problem is that it uses batteries... normal use you will get arround a week.
You have to check the batteries even if it has not been used since it consumes batteries. You need to have information stored and updated in your pc AT ALL TIMES, in this way if the information is lost from visor you will be able to recover it-hotsync. Information is usually lost when batteries are low/die.

I replaced it for the sony clie pega tj25 handheld.

For all of you who have or plan to buy this item... Good luck.

PROS:
- Extremely inexpensive
- Not as large as the Prism model
- Simple buttons
- EXCELENTLY designed stylus (reset pin, stylus, and screwdriver combination!)

The Palm OS on the Visor Deluxe is slightly outdated (3.1 instead of 4+) which can cause headaches if you are trying to install newer software. Also, the casing is a little too large to be a pocket item and the unattaching cover can be annoying at times. Those are some general negatives. Besides that I personally had other problems. I was very careful with my Visor and kept the plastic cover on it unless it was in use. Still, under regular, every-day abuse, the screen cracked while it was in my pocket. Replacement was a simple process and Handspring gets 5 stars on service (though it would have been nice if it wouldn't have had to be replaced in the first place). After receiving my replacement, however, I noted that the stylus was not held in place as it should have been while in the visor, which caused the loss of many styli. Sadly, again after much care, the screen of my Visor mysteriously cracked again. Thus, I am now looking into buying a new PDA and probably won't choose a Visor Deluxe this time, being that they don't withstand my handling well. If you choose to purchase a Visor Deluxe, be careful with it and I would recommend investing in a new protective cover other than the standard one provided.

I gave the Palm III XE a 5 star rating. So how can I give the Handspring Visor Deluxe a 5 star rating, too?

That's easy. I love them both.

They both strike a near perfect balance between usability, practicality and portability. The Palm III series seems to fill a niche occupied by early PDA adopters such as myself and business executives. Heck, it's almost part of the business uniform.

The Visor, however, appeals to a different crowd: Power users who, want greater expandability. Mac users, who find it's easier to use a Visor with their Mac. I even know someone who bought one simply because they "look cool."

The Visor has all the advantages of the PalmOS. There are literally thousands of software titles to run on it.

It's got all the advantages of the familiar Palm-type device. Anyone who has used a Palm before can essentially use the Visor immediately -- with a very minimal learning curve. And it's no problem if you haven't used a Palm before. The interface is highly intuitive and rather easy to learn. In five minutes I was up and running like a champ.

The Visor has the added advantages of native USB communication and the incredible versatility of the "Springboard" module. These modules allow the Visor to adopt an amazing number of roles: MP3 player, GPS, wireless PDA and even wireless phone. Of course all the familiar peripherals are also available. There are modems, keyboards, etc...

In my opinion, Handspring has taken the best handheld computing platform on the market and made it even better. I think it's great. It's well done. It's well made and it's easy to use -- even if you just want a simple electronic organizer.

If you're looking for a first PDA -- or want more expandability options than are available for a Palm III device -- I think you will like the Handspring Visor Deluxe.