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Report from Internet World


Thu Oct 7, 1999 - 2:54 PM EDT - By Marcus Adolfsson

The Stylus

Mike: The stylus is not as bad as I had been led to believe by reviewers. Yes, it is all plastic, but it is round and does not feel much different than a Palm III stylus. What I don’t like about the stylus is its placement on the side of the Visor. It takes too much force to remove it and to replace it. The stylus itself has ridges towards the tip, helping to steady its grip by fingers; a nice touch. Comparing the tip of it to my Palm III stylus, I was surprised to see that my III stylus is "pointier" than the Visor’s.

Marcus: Having owned a Newton, PalmPilot, and Cassiopeia E-100, the Visor stylus feels just like any basic stylus to me. Nothing fancy about it. VisorCentral reader David Levine, currently a Palm III user, thought the "the all-plastic stylus felt light and flimsy."

NEW VISOR STYLUS
Mike: Those of you who will just hate the standard Visor stylus, and long for the features of a Palm III-type stylus, take heart! I was shown a new stylus you can buy for -- of course -- extra money! It is plastic at the ends and metal in the middle, just like the Palm III-series stylus. Unscrew the tip and there’s a plastic Reset pin. Unscrew the back -- and the metal cylinder ends with a screwdriver head! A screwdriver head that can be used to open the Visor case (have at it, hardware hackers!).

Marcus: Didn’t get a chance to try the new "metal" stylus. They sell in a five pack for $15.95. The screw driver "feature" may not exist in the shipping version. In the background of the photo above is the Ice colored serial docking station.

VISOR COVER
Mike: This is a huge mistake! It is very clumsy to put on and to remove. I do not regard it as a cover; as I told one Handspring rep, it should be called a pseudo-cover. A third-party NEEDS to come up with a way to get a Palm III-style flip-up cover on this thing. Again, except for "Graphite," all color units have an "Ice" snap-on (wrestle-on!) cover.

Marcus: Again, I agree with Mike. While the current cover is better than no cover at all, it is quite an inconvenience. A flip-up cover would be a great accessory, however, one who uses several Springboard modules might find it hard to use such a cover because off the various seizes of the modules. Some are quite high and tall (which would limit the "flip" distance of such a cover).

Docking Stations >>