Handspring introduces color version of Visor

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The new Visor handheld device from Handspring features a 16-bit color display

by Ephraim Schwartz

(IDG) -- Mountain View, Calif.-based Handspring announced on Monday the addition of two Visor handhelds to its product line, making a grand total of five models. The Visor Prism will include 16-bit color display, a Motorola DragonBall VZ processor running at 33MHz -- twice the performance of the previous EZ DragonBall -- and 8MB of RAM for $449.

To accommodate the higher energy requirements of the new chip and color display, the Prism will also include a Lithium Ion rechargeable battery. The Prism weighs 1.5 ounces more than the noncolor versions.

The Visor Platinum was also introduced on Monday. At $299, the Platinum will also include the faster processor but with an 8-bit gray scale display rather than color.

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Both units will be sold directly on Handspring's Web site with units available in traditional retail outlets in early November, according to a company spokesperson.

Recent introductions of more powerful handhelds -- especially the Palm IIIc from Palm along with the VisorPhone and these newest models from Handspring -- appear to indicate a change in the direction for the mobile industry. First viewed as a companion to full-sized computers, some in the industry are now calling handhelds true personal computers.

"'PC' more accurately describes a device you can carry around with you," said Ken Hyers, a wireless industry analyst at Cahners In-Stat Group, in Newton, Mass. "Former PCs are now called desktops," Hyers added.

Ironically, Microsoft was taken to task in the past for trying to cram too many functions and features into handhelds that used its Win CE operating system.

"Some of the approaches that our competition is taking are validating our approach. Users want more than strict PIMs [personal information managers]," said Ed Suwanjindar, product manager, mobile devices division, at Microsoft, in Redmond, Wash. Suwanjindar also pointed out that the Compaq iPaq Pocket PC uses a 206MHz processor that until recently was offered enough performance to run most desktops.

The iPaq Pocket PC, which is based on the Microsoft OS, is selling extremely well, according to Mike McGuire a mobile analyst at Gartner, in San Jose, Calif.

"Compaq is ramping up production from 50,000 a month to 100,000 per month," McGuire said.

Even Jeff Hawkins, Palm's founder and the current chairman of the board at Handspring, appears to be moving away from his formerly held point of view that the handheld is a companion device to that of the handheld being a full-sized computer. In a recent interview with InfoWorld, Hawkins said that the future of PC is handheld devices.

"A big desktop computer is a corporate workstation," Hawkins said. And for users reluctant to give up their desktop games, Handspring officials displayed an add-on joystick that will ship with the popular Zap2000 game in January.

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Visor launched in Asia
(IDG.net)
Talk to your Visor
(PC World)
Handspring sidles into wireless
(The Industry Standard)
PDAs and cell phones converging
(InfoWorld)
Handspring's Hawkins chases the unconventional
(IDG.net)
Look, Ma, no modules!
(MacWeek)
Study shows PDA sales doubling
(InfoWorld)
Cut the strings on your Visor
(PC World)

Handspring
Palm Inc.
Compaq Computer Corp.
Microsoft Corp.

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