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 >>
