Handspring's new Visor Edge was announced today at their
campus in Mountain View, CA, and simultaneously in London and New York. The new product is
square, flat, and thin, with a metal body and metal flip lid that springs shut. The product will
come in three colors: Red, which will only be available on Handspring's website, and Blue, and Silver, which will be
in retail stores as well as the website. There is a single stylus that locks into
place and releases with a press on its knurled edge. Its display is said to be an even crisper black and
white than previous models.
The flip lid is removable, which reveals a card edge connector
that is a "superset of the Springboard connector," according to Jeff Hawkins, who introduced the
new product. Unlike other products that use piggy-back connectors for expansion,
the Visor Edge comes with this adapter.
Using this adapter, Hawkins showed the Visor Edge working with the new
Ideo eyemodule and the popular Visor Phone.
"When I designed the Palm V, I decided that we'd glue the case," said Hawkins. "But
this time I decided screws were kind of pretty." So they included them in the design of the
Edge.
Also demonstrated was the new Advanced Lookup feature, a software implementation that
uses the four buttons on the front of the Visor Edge to quickly locate a phone number in
the Address Book with just a few quick presses. It's much like T9, except that you enter
a range of letters with only two buttons. As demonstrated, it looks pretty useful.
To see the full review click here.
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