This was my Christmas present to myself. I had been looking for about 2 months at something to replace my aging Sharp Mobilon
TriPad. My criteria for the purchase was first and foremost cost and a close second came cross platform compatibility. I originally looked at the Agenda VR3
which is powered by Linux. It looks promising, however, I had my reservations because I didn't feel I was getting a lot for the $249 purchase price. Not only that
I did not feel that the applications were being developed as quickly as possible. The second choice that I had was also Linux powered. It came from Sharp.
Unfortunately, that is about all that I know about it. When I went to their web site, I got an error message indicating that they did not support my browser (Netscape 6.2).
The way I see it is this. The Linux geeks of he world have put up with MS and IE compatibility issues for years now. We finally get a browser that kicks MS's butt,
and a vendor that is supposedly supporting Linux won't support the latest browser. Doesn't sound as if they have the Linux agenda as a priority. The next choice is
the Palm OS. The first thing I did was check the Web for compatibility issues. I found a lot of resources that said it was "do-able".
BTW-Google was invaluable for my research.
Well I now had the OS I was shooting for, now to determine which platform. I looked at both the Palm m100 ($99) and the
Handspring Visor Deluxe ($129). Both are outstanding values for the money. What sold me on the Visor was the USB connection instead of the Palm serial connection.
USB is dramtically faster than a serial connection. Well, by now you are probably wondering where the Visor Platinum fits in, right? To make a long story short,
I was in our local Sam's Club and they had a good price on it ($199). Not only that, it came with a way cool
eyemodule camera.If you don't know, this is a springboard attachment that allows you to take digital pictures (b/w or color) with your Visor. As
Paul Harvey would say, "Now you know the rest of the story".
The Visor Platinum has the following specifications:
This past Monday (12/17/2001), some idiot decided they liked my Visor more than me. Don't worry though, I will get another one. It will have to wait until after the holiday season. I simply don't have the money right now.