Rating: 
Summary: outstanding
Review: To all looking at this pruduct. It is very good. I was concerned with the other reviews. Omnisky is a reseller of ATT Wireless. The people who were unhappy do not have the ATT network. They should have Verizon. I work in this industry nationwide and coverage in NYC and Illinois can be spotty. I have had no problems with this modem I am in South Florida, which is ATT. The support is great with both Omnisky and Handspring. The Visor Platinum is faster than my Palm V. The modem and Omnisky filtering allows a much faster connection. I use another CDPD modem for my laptop and the 19.2 speed is slow. This is from the photos and ads. There is good news on the horizon though ATT is launching 128k connection over the CDPD network. This should be by the end of the year. Bottom line is if you like "toys" you will love it. If you use it for work, you will not ever be without it. Also you will be the envy of all of those traveling business people toting around a 10lb laptop. One last thing Omnisky software. Put the CD in your comp. enter your chosen user name and activation code. click add for your multiple mail accounts. You are wireless in ten minutes. Very easy.
Rating:
Summary: outstanding
Review: To all looking at this pruduct. It is very good. I was concerned with the other reviews. Omnisky is a reseller of ATT Wireless. The people who were unhappy do not have the ATT network. They should have Verizon. I work in this industry nationwide and coverage in NYC and Illinois can be spotty. I have had no problems with this modem I am in South Florida, which is ATT. The support is great with both Omnisky and Handspring. The Visor Platinum is faster than my Palm V. The modem and Omnisky filtering allows a much faster connection. I use another CDPD modem for my laptop and the 19.2 speed is slow. This is from the photos and ads. There is good news on the horizon though ATT is launching 128k connection over the CDPD network. This should be by the end of the year. Bottom line is if you like "toys" you will love it. If you use it for work, you will not ever be without it. Also you will be the envy of all of those traveling business people toting around a 10lb laptop. One last thing Omnisky software. Put the CD in your comp. enter your chosen user name and activation code. click add for your multiple mail accounts. You are wireless in ten minutes. Very easy.
Rating: 
Summary: It depends on where you live...
Review: What makes or breaks this product is completely dependant on where you live. If your locality is serviced by the correct towers with the right upgrades in place this item is a little jewel. But, if you are out of the access area, it is simply a paperweight. Omnisky asks for your zipcode in an online form it will tell you if your zip code is in the service area. In a given week I spend equal parts of my time in the Boston/Providence area for work and back home, just south of Houston. In Providence the coverage is excellent outdoors and sometimes decent indoors depending on how close to the shore you are. In Houston the coverage is incredibly strong, even indoors. A few miles down the road towards Galveston and things aren't as rock solid. So before you take in any comments from me or anyone else, realize that your satisfaction with this product will be porportional to the strength of your signal. I run an online business that requires me to answer a lot of emails, lookup online orders and forward them to my fulfilment department. I interact with my online merchant account and place orders with my wholesale accounts. I am able to do all of this with my Omnisky Minstrel S wireless modem attached to a Handspring Visor Prism. It allows me to cut and paste, access different pop mail accounts and fill out various forms -- even using secure protocol. I am able to access Fidelity brokerage and manipulate my investments, along with accessing near real time data to help me with my decisions. The battery life is pretty good, usually outlasting the Prism itself, and the supplied AC adapter is small enough to be carried along with your travel accessories for the Prism. The data rate is 19.2k and I get nice smooth transfers that is fast enough to get the job done for me. Yahoo! offers a program that allows you to chat via Yahoo! Messenger - but not the general chat program. Aol has a wireless app also, but it basically lets you IM others and use email. I am told that ICQ has a new application that will work with it also. This modem really expands your world. My wife and I have been driving around, talked about seeing a movie and were able to look up movie times at selected cinemas. The most powerfull feature is being able to access my pop3 mail accounts and send any size email (or receive) that I want. It is fast and efficient. Setup was a little difficult, but the customer service staff at Omnisky are really good and helped me through the first couple of problems. It had more to do with my unit being too far away from a good tower than anything else, but I did have a couple of other problems concerning the IP I was assigned not registering correctly. Each time it happened (all in the first three days) I was able to call customer service, they had me turn my unit off for thirty minutes then back on - and it began working with no problems. After I learned to get a backup module, all of my problems were solved. On the downside, I get an inordinate amount of faults that require me to do a soft reset. Pratically anytime that I fail to powerdown the modem before setting the device down to catch a call. Nothing is lost, and moments later I am back online, but it is a little bewildering. I should also note that I once had to perform a hard reset and lost all of my data because of a problem I had sychronizing the unit with Scout (Omnisky's online server). I lost signal in mid transfer and it corrupted an essential file. Again, having a backup module takes the fear factor out - but once you have it setup correctly and make sure that you synchronize correctly (I would simply find a good signal, then remain staitionary until complete). This is a tremendously fun tool....
Rating: 
Summary: Coverage problems in Phoenix
Review: Where this module works, it is great....too cool. But I have been working with tech support at Omnisky for 3 weeks to try to get coverage in my two prime locations in north central Phoenix. I am sending it back. Omnisky tells me they are having lots of problems with the misntrel S. I even tried two of their modums to see if it was a defect. I love it so much where it does work that I may order another in a few months to see if coverage improves. Sigh. Supposedly the coverage at the two zip codes I am having problems with is excellent. Works better outdoors, but not at all inside or outside my home.
Rating:
Summary: Get used to hard restarts
Review: While I love my Visor Prism, this modem I bought with it stinks. I can only get it to work in the Wall Street area of Manhattan. I can't get a connection from my home in Brooklyn or from various areas in Queens. It didn't work when I took it on a trip to Atlanta, either. I've gotten fatal errors when removing the modem module that have caused me to lose all of my data. I've lost count of how many hard restarts I've made. I got the modem as part of a promotion, so with the promised rebates I'll ultimately only pay about $50 for it, but it's not worth the money. Find another modem -- you've been warned.
Rating: 
Summary: Okay in Major Cities
Review: [Note: This review does not cover the question of whether or not one needs a wireless PDA.] I owned a Palm VII for about 15 months before I decided to upgrade. Or rather, needed to upgrade...2MB and wireless connectivity don't exactly go well together. It was tough decision, but with all of the rebates, I thought I'd try a Visor (Platinum) with the Omnisky modem. First thing I noticed, the VII has better penetration in buildings...at conferences and seminars, the VII worked great in just about every room I was in. The OmniSky seems to only work if I'm in a room near the outside part of the building, sitting as close as possible to the outside within the room. Second item of notice, the Omnisky software utilizes lots and lots of graphical icons and a very GUI-y email client. The VII was definitely more "content" oriented. I didn't scroll as much when reading email or news articles. And I don't know why, but articles do seem more concatenated with the Omnisky than they do with the VII. Fourth, the Palm network has better coverage than Omnisky's (see palm.net vs omnisky.com's coverage maps). Fifth, I miss just popping up the antenna and tapping to connect; it must take a good 5-10 seconds to connect with the Omnisky. So why stick with the Omnisky? I prepaid for a year (rebates). So far, I can indeed do a little bit more, such as telnetting to machines and being able to browse sites without waiting for someone to write a web clipping app. Surprise, surprise, the darn thing works in Vancouver, BC, Canada and at Whistler (yes, the ski resort)! Absolutely zero Palm.net coverage in BC, Canada. This was very handy when I wanted to do some currency conversion. Yes, my OmniSky did crash my Visor a number of times when I first got it. Then I read someone's review suggesting to close the modem apps before pulling out the module. My Visor hasn't crashed since (knock on wood ;) ). If you think you'll only be using or needing this device in major cities, it's worth considering. If you drive around a bit or tend to find yourself outside major cities, consider a Palm VIIx. Keep in mind, the VIIx is more suited to folks who prefer their wireless PDA use to be more content-oriented.
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