The colour display is a nice change from the dreary gray LCD displays many of us are used to and offers a host of exciting options that were previously not possible. For example, in our tests with the Visor Prism we used the Eye Module 2 to take some colour snapshot around the office, and even a few seconds of choppy video. While you would be able to do the same thing on a regular Visor, the added colour display makes it possible to easily edit out bad pics, before spending valuable storage space on them.

Frivolous things like an onboard game of Tetris are much more fun when you are dealing with coloured blocks, and well basically the reasons are endless. A few quirks do exist however. Viewing the back-lit LCD display in direct sunlight is not so great, as the ambient light overpowers the backlighting. Conversely, using the Prism in a darkened room, or at night is much better than using the plain LCD version.

Office workers need not worry however as the display is very visible under normal office lighting, as you can see by the photos below.

Blackberry vs. Visor

The arguments for getting a Blackberry or a Visor are as varied as you can imagine, but there is one particular aspect of the Visor Prism which we personally just loved. Now the colour screen is great, and the on-board memory superb, but the rechargeable HotSync cradle is to die for. I have a Blackberry and it is a wonderful piece of equipment, but I like rechargeable batteries more. The Visor Prism recharges every time you drop it into the HotSync cradle so it is generally always at 100% battery charge.

The Prism lasts about 6 hours with continuous use, and if left on its own doing nothing will quickly turn off after a few minutes to concerve battery power even longer. If you are hard on your hand helds and regularly expect to drain the batteries to oblivion, recharge time sits at about 90 minutes.

The HotSync cradle doubles as both a charger and a means of transferring data between the PC and the Visor. Once the Prism is positioned in the cradle, the user need only hit the button on the cradle to begin the data sync. In a few moments (when connected by USB transfer speeds are around 1.5MB/s) the data on the Visor is backed up with that on the computer.

Additionally, if devices like the EyeModule 2 are attached, the images which have been stored on the Prism can be quickly transfered to the computer for editing or emailing. The Visor Prism comes standard with 8MB of onboard memory that will easily hold a multitude of email address, contacts, appointments, and the files necessary for various PalmOS operation.