Rating: 
Summary: Good for Beginners but watch out....
Review: I have had my Neo for about 6 months now and use it several times an hour as I am a therapist trying to keep up with appointments and phone numbers all day in and out of the office. This thing had become like my right hand until last week when the batteries went dead. As before, I fetched some new batteries, put them in the back, closed the compartment, but...no power. Tried several other sets of batteries, still no power. My heart sank, considering all my appointments for the day (not to mention the month and previous few months) were in there and I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing that afternoon. After several attempts, the Neo powered back on but guess what? ALL MY INFORMATION WAS ERASED. Thankfully, I had hotsynched about 2 weeks before this event but not often enough to retrieve any information for the last two weeks or the following month. I have spent a solid week recompiling my appointments and phone numbers but, even so, all the phone numbers have my fax number in parenthesis before the actual number. I don't understand that, but whatever, it was easy to erase all that. Lesson learned here: if you purchase one of these, hotsynch daily and be careful of technical glitches in the programming. Myself, I am returning this and shopping for a color PDA NOT made by Handspring.
Rating: 
Summary: rock solid handheld
Review: I have owned my handspring visor neo for more than a year and a half now. The machine is extremely reliable. It has never crashed on me, despite falling on the floor multiple times. The machine has never had any problems hot synching with the internet or any problems beaming with other handhelds. I use it daily as a medicine intern and rely heavily on epocrates and 5 minute clinical consult programs. The software is outstanding--very detailed and easy to use and continually updated and improving. Finally, the machine is reasonably priced when compared with other devices of similar utility. I have friends who paid more and received defective devices, and I feel lucky to have bought this one.true story addendum: I recently got sick in the hospital and while vomiting, dropped my handheld into the toilet bowl. For three days it wouldn't turn on. Then, miraculously, it turned on. I managed to hot-synch all the data from my PC back onto the handheld without any problems. Amazing!
Rating:
Summary: rock solid handheld
Review: I have owned my handspring visor neo for more than a year and a half now. The machine is extremely reliable. It has never crashed on me, despite falling on the floor multiple times. The machine has never had any problems hot synching with the internet or any problems beaming with other handhelds. I use it daily as a medicine intern and rely heavily on epocrates and 5 minute clinical consult programs. The software is outstanding--very detailed and easy to use and continually updated and improving. Finally, the machine is reasonably priced when compared with other devices of similar utility. I have friends who paid more and received defective devices, and I feel lucky to have bought this one. true story addendum: I recently got sick in the hospital and while vomiting, dropped my handheld into the toilet bowl. For three days it wouldn't turn on. Then, miraculously, it turned on. I managed to hot-synch all the data from my PC back onto the handheld without any problems. Amazing!
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic device!!
Review: I have purchased and tried a large number of colour and mono PDAs (Palm OS and Pocket PC) during the last two years. Out of all of them I must say that the Handspring Neo is by far the best, easiest and most fun to use.
It's amazingly light even though it takes 2 AA size batteries. The screen is fantastic for a mono device and in the daylight, is sharp and easily readable. It's also got a much bigger display area than the new Palm devices. The extra enhancements you get with a Handspring over other Palm devices include DateBook+ (which has a much cleaner interface with the added bonus of a 7 day view which I always use), CityTime (which is a world time utility and allows you to view 4 different country time clocks on one screen), Expense (for quick logging of daily expenses incurred) and Calc+ (which includes many more scientific functions among the other math options). Almost forgot, you also get a much better Find facility for tracking down contact details quicker. The backlight option is fine if you just need to look something up during the night or quickly need to make a note when you're stargazing! However, you do need to be in complete darkness to see anything and also if you intend to read e-books I would suggest keeping the room light on as you would almost certainly strain your eyes. The 8Mb memory is certainly enough for the more-than-average PDA user. I have installed WordSmith (excellent word processor I use for short story and article writing), TinySheet4 (spreadsheet application I use for timesheets and cashflow forecasts), several e-book novels using the PalmReader viewer, Avantgo (for offline browsing of web information such as; news, sports, entertainment etc - I read BBC News, Space.com, SciFi Channel and Pocket Doctor), Eudora (mail program for reading my desktop email and also downloading email directly using the IR port on the Handspring and my Nokia mobile phone - works brilliantly and is very quick), thinkDB2 (fabulous database application - I have databases for story ideas, recipes, Lotus Notes code library) and ToDoList+ (which is a more enhanced version of the ToDo application that comes as standard - I use this because it allows you to add graphical notes behind each task as well as the standard text notes). I also have a number of games installed for free moments I get. Among them is the fantastically addictive Bejeweled! I highly recommended this device and I absolutely love it!!
Rating: 
Summary: Benefits of owning Handspring
Review: I have read that customer service is bad and I have had good experience with it. I had a Visor Prism before purchasing this Neo and the plastic case broke after a fall. I ordered an advance replacement when I called in and explained the problem I had (yes I said I broke it by dropping it). They charged me $... for a replacement which they express shipped the next day. If you think about it FedExing a 2 lb box must cost close to $... and the unit I recieved was refurbed but pristine. This made me a very happy customer. I parted ways with my Prism when a coworker traded it for a brand new iPaq 3765 with 64MB Ram and Pocket PC 2002. It is now a month later and I just bought the Neo because for work nothing beats Palm OS and for me Handspring Customer service is the best. When I had a Palm III I had to pay close to $... to get a replacement when the glass cracked in my back pocket and it was a ... refurbished unit. And when my Palm V got the digitizer syndrome I had to pay to get it replaced as well. The Neo has the necesary memory and I have yet to find a more practical expansion than springboard!!!
Rating:
Summary: Not much of an update to the Visor Deluxe
Review: I missed out on all the recent discounts to the Visor Deluxe in my area, but really wanted to get a PDA. As far as the PalmOS goes, I loved the features (Avantgo, Outlook integration, ebooks). However, the hardware leaves much to be desired: the glossy plastic holds fingerprints like glue, and is very slippery; the battery was down 20% after 3 days (many syncs), the backlight is weak.
Rating: 
Summary: Not there yet
Review: I purchased a blue Neo for my wife last April. At first it seemed to be a decent tool. She enjoyed entering contacts and making grocery lists on it. It was so successful that she began taking it with us on trips and using it as her only source of addresses, phone numbers, etc. while we travelled. Well to make a long story short...the predictable happened. The Neo failed when we needed it. No postcards home, no way to contact friends. Of course, we still had some things committed to memory and the disaster was survived. But needless to say, my wife was extremely disappointed. The problem seemed to be related to the screen though we are unsure. (My wife is a computer engineer and I'm reasonably technologically sauve so I don't think it was us that failed.) The Neo began working again some time after we reached home. Needless to say we don't trust it for any important information. It will also be interesting to see if we can "exchange" it or have it fixed under warranty since it appears to be working now. As a side note, the MP3 player I also purchased for her goes unused. It is VERY slow downloading songs through its USB stand. The bottom line: Can you really trust important information to an unreliable device? Are you willing to hear "What c r a p" from your wife in reference to a gift if it fails?
Rating:
Summary: Why I bought the Visor Neo
Review: I purchased my Visor Neo *because* of the AAA batteries. When I go on a business trip or on vacation to Maine, I need not lug a cradle or charger with me. I know of no place that I would go where I can't get a couple of batteries when the current ones run low (assuming I forgot to pack an extra pair)! So, all in all, I bought it because of the portability (no recharger required), the readability of the screen (just returned the Sony Clie T415), and the 8MB of RAM which allow me to keep both WordSmith and ThinkDB a fingertip away.
Rating: 
Summary: Visor Neo On-Off switch failure
Review: I purchased this Visor from Amazon after doing a lot of research on the web site and decided this was the most appropriate PDA to get my wife for Christmas. I ordered it on 11-19-01 and with free shipping, received it about a week later (free shipping means snail mail). The PDA was very nice looking and easy to set up. I entered only one address (ours). I put the PDA in the deluxe leather case that I also purchased and turned it off for the rest of the day. The next day, the unit failed to turn on. I followed the provided instructions and tried to reset it without any luck. I also changed out the two AAA batteries without any luck. I also tried the online Amazon instructions for trouble shooting this PDA and the result is to return the unit because there was nothing else to do. This left a very sour taste in my mouth and now I'm looking into the Palm series at the local Fry's Electronic store. (I did purchase a Palm series PDA and yes I had to pay tax and spend my time in line, but at least the unit is still working). Beware of Visor!! Its a clone of the Palm and we know clones don't always perform like the original.
Rating:
Summary: Handspring's are excellent
Review: I really think hangspring has a lot going for it... the units are sturdy (the digitizers seem stable and not too fragile to minor bumps) The screen size is SO MUCH better than palm units.. especially the *m* series whcih i found practically unreadable. The concept of being able to add modules is excellent... i have a modem and i can connect to AOL...and a camera (the eye-module) whcih each contain their own software so it isnt stored on your palm, taking up room. I will say that the modem (thincom) is a huge battery drainer... and unfortunately the batteries arent rechargable... the costs for AAA's can be high... the agerage use is 2 weeks but it can be lower..on the other hand if i am using my modem i can drain them in a day. still it is handy. i also have a targus folding keyboard which makes this unit a breeze to take notes with!
The software it comes with is standard ...planner, memos.. alarms...clock... a few games... but the available software is vast and the neo, which is essentially a souped-up deluxe has a higher OS...so you can run more programs. (you cant upgrade your oporating system like you can on palm units... ) the unit will hold alot of programs... if you only use small-aversize programs it will hold alot. i have a few very large programs so that limits me a bit (AOL, Avantgo, epocrates) and they are huge memory hogs... but i still have room for quite a bit. THE PRICE CONTINUES TO DROP ON THIS UNIT..which makes it an excellent little machine... i would suggest getting the visor deluxe becuase its cheaper except this has a newer version of the palm operating system...which is important to me I upgraded from a visor deluxe which is a minimal upgrade... not necessarily one i would reccoment except i wanted to pass the deluxe on to my son... The difference is in speed which isnt really even evident in my use...HOWEVER...the neo does seem to use batteries more effeciently whoch is a saving.
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