Do
you wish your Visor Deluxe had a little more "oomph' in it? Do you
want IR Sync and some of the other benefits of Palm OS 3.5? Then
check out the Handspring Visor Platinum from Handspring.
Physical Specifications
The Visor Platinum (VPL) is the fastest Visor to date, featuring a 33
MHz Dragonball V2 processor and Palm OS 3.5.2H. It has a casing that
is exactly the same as the Visor Deluxe (VDX), but only comes in Silver
-- however, the entire casing is Silver, not just the front half.
Unfortunately, the deluxe stylus, hard cover, and cradle are all graphite.
The Platinum, like the VDX, uses two AAA batteries and should have comparable,
if not better, battery life.
Hardware
Looking at the Platinum, it's hard to tell that you have a more powerful
handheld than the Visor Deluxe. The Platinum uses the same screen
as the VDX, same button layout -- same everything on the outside.
The only difference is the silver color. One of the raging debates
in the Discussion Forum
that I have seen is whether the Platinum uses silver paint or silver plastic
-- the answer is both. If you take off the Springboard stub, you
will notice that it is solid silver plastic on the inside but has a silver
texture on the outside like the rest of the Platinum. I took a knife
and grazed against the outside and paint came off. I like the textured
look and am glad that Handspring uses it.
Unlike the Visor
Prism, the Platinum is usable in daylight. Like the Visor Deluxe
(and all Palm organizers since the IIIx), the backlight on the Platinum
is worthless except in pitch black scenarios, and even then it's only marginally
passable. This is the one area where users that move up from a Palm
III or earlier have to "take the bad with the good." The screen is
clearer than a Palm III, but the backlighting of my old Palm III (pardon
the pun) really outshines the Platinum.
New OS >>
