Review: Handspring Visor Deluxe PDA

It is kind of strange to be writing a review for a product that was discontinued a few years ago, but I'm writing this anyway for a few reasons: First, the Handspring Visor Deluxe is still readily available from merchants like Ebay and Overstock.com; And second, this is one of my favorite electronic devices (and I do have a few, though I'm not what marketing folks [like me] call an early adopter).

This is a very simple, basic and no-frills PDA. It does everything it's supposed to do and it performs it's functions (mostly) very well. I use it for two main purposes: to help me organize my life by keeping track of phone numbers, notes to myself, business meetings, etc.; and to keep track of some of my favorite sites on AvantGo.

I really like the Palm interface. It's extremely intuitive and has almost no learning curve. If you've never had a Palm PDA before then it will probably take about an hour to learn everything. Before you know it it will be second nature. And of course, one of the best things about PDAs in general (as opposed to the more simple electronic organizers) is that they comes with a program that you install on your desktop or laptop computer. You can enter info into the PDA or your computer and then sync them together.

(by the way, as a sideline, if you have a PDA and you don't have AvantGo then you need to get this program as soon as possible. It allows you to read mobile versions of certain websites on your PDA, and you don't have to be connected to the net. Every morning I sync my PDA and then read the New York Times and Cnet on the train to work)

However, you have to be very careful not to stretch this device to it's limit. For example, it only has 8 megs of memory, which was a lot when it came out, but most PDAs now come with at least 32. So if you have a lot of programs on it (especially big programs like AvantGo and Vindigo) then it will become very slow.

The backlight stinks. It's a weird turquoise color. And it doesn't really work. I never knew this was possible, but when you turn it on it actually makes the text harder to read. I never knew lighting something up could actually do the opposite of what it's supposed to do.

I think the ergonomics is great. Some people think the design is too plain, or too squarish, but it fits in your hand perfectly. Many PDAs (and other electronic things like cell phones) are just too small. This is just right. Overall the design and ergonomics is very functional.

There is one thing that you have to be very careful about. Every once in a while it will start acting really funky for no reason. You'll get an error message, or something won't work. This happens to me about once a month. So you have to reset it, which isn't really a big deal. As long as you sync it with your desktop on a regular basis then you won't lose any data.

It does have a built-in web browser but I don't use it because I personally think it's kind of overkill. I don't need to be connected to the net all the time. And this does require a springboard module attachment that's impossible to find now.

Some people see their PDA as an all-in-one device that does everything for them except shine their shoes. They use it to organize info, to check their email, to play games, and now that convergence is becoming so popular, to talk on the phone too. If you are like this then you'd probably want something more powerful. But for me, a PDA is a productivity tool. I use it to help me organize things and keep track of information, and that's where it excels. It does have a few little glitches, but nothing to major in my opinion.