Re: [vox] handspring visor is dead
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Re: [vox] handspring visor is dead
On Fri, 27 Sep 2002, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> > BTW: I kind of like the Hiptop, but I haven't seen a formal release, and I
> > am not sure how good it will be as an organizer. Since I think an
> > organizer is more valuable than a communicator for my needs, I am probably
> > in none of these guys' target market.
>
> ooooooooo...... this is the first i've heard of it. looks nice!
>
> hopefully...
> * it'll have a graffiti pad[1]
Nope.
> * it'll use palmOS
Not hardly.
> * voice quality will be good
Pretty good, not great.
> * i can import my visor's palmOS data[1]
Probably.
>
> nice...
> * LCD screen replaceable with screwdriver. outstanding!
Mechanical design is very well done.
Looks nice too. Very clear.
> * at $200, the price looks good
Yes.
> * According to Danger, the agreement includes "all you can eat" data
> capabilities starting around $25 a month. <-- can this be true?
Well, it isn't in the market yet, so one has to wonder whether the service
companies are going to get behind that. On the other hand, if they can't
make the monthly fee competitive, they won't take the market by storm, and
they really need to do that to succeed. In their favor, their html
reformulation/compression seems to work quite nicely, so their claims
appear to be feasible.
> bad...
> * java on an arm... i have a feeling it's going to be suh-low.
Didn't seem that way. A lot of heavy lifting happens on their servers.
> if anyone gets one PLEASE post a review to vox!
Don't have one, but got to play with one for half an hour. Didn't see the
sales literature till after, so I wasn't really prepared to review it.
As I said, I wasn't as impressed with its "organizer" capabilities as with
its "communicator" capabilities. Also, it suffers from the spotty
coverage of GSM technology... so it probably works best in well-populated
areas. As a web browser and email system it was surprisingly usable.
It is interesting to consider the problem of taking notes while using it
as a cell phone... just not practical. In fact, I think the display went
into "cell phone" mode, making such notetaking impossible. However, it
could make SMS truly convenient and equivalent to email, so that may not
be such a limitation depending on your use patterns. Be assured, your
communication patterns would change if you had one of these.
> pete
>
> [1]: these items would be a show stopper for me.
It would replace your cell phone pretty handily. Whether it would replace
your Visor depends how you use your Visor... and in your case, it doesn't
sound like it would. It is not a development platform for
do-it-yourselfers or in-house corporate automation developers
(Zaurus/Palm)... it is more like a self-upgrading communications
appliance, and if you lose it, their servers can reconfigure a new one
exactly like your old one was. Stealing one would be pretty pointless,
unless your goal was to inconvenience its owner, who would probably be
quite distressed at their interruption in connectivity. :)
Its achilles heel is the central control of networking. I think Danger
expects to make its money in this server farm business, and it will be
interesting to see if someone can figure out how to replace that with a
multi-vendor or open-source equivalent. Unfortunately, if the cost of the
devices is subsidized too heavily against future server operations income,
the platform could be killed by such diversification if it happens too
soon.
But as a cool gadget, it gets full marks.
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