The VisorPhone has its own Li-Ion battery that provides 3 hours of talk time or 72 hours of standby time, and it also has multiple ring settings and a silent vibrating ring for those annoying people in the movie theater.  You can also adjust the ring setting using a physical slider control on the module.

One cool thing that GSM allows you to do is send Short Message Service (SMS) messages to other SMS users.  This has made GSM very popular in the rest of the world, and I think it will take off here in the U.S. as well.  Sometimes you just want to send a quick note to someone and not have to call them.  SMS allows you to do that, and with canned messages similar to the @ctiveLink, there is less text that you'll need to write.

Other features of the VisorPhone include easier 3-way calling and the ability to use the VisorPhone as a modem.  The VisorPhone supports up to 14.4 Kbps, but many U.S. service providers top out at 9600 Kbps.

I think that the SMS and modem functionality of the VisorPhone will appeal to users, as it gives the module extra functionality for your money.  At $299, the VisorPhone is a pretty big investment, but if you take into consideration the fact that you get an advanced cell phone that integrates with the visor, as well as the equivalent of 2-way messaging and a modem, the VisorPhone becomes a better deal.  For those who cannot effectively use GSM, AirPrime is making a CDMA module with many of the features of the VisorPhone.

The VisorPhone is expected to be available November 2000.  We'll have a review of the module as soon as we can.

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