By ADAM GIFFORD
It's a diary. It's a phone. It's a voice recorder. It's a camera. In fact, there seems to be little the Handspring Visor isn't.
Handspring has signed a distribution deal with Vodafone and subdistributor Brightpoint to bring the Visor line of handheld computers to New Zealand.
Handspring was founded in 1998 by Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky, who also created the original PalmPilot.
International vice-president Bill Holtzman said it was a rare chance to take a successful product and rethink it. While Visor uses the Palm operating system and has a similar look, it also includes the Springboard expansion slot for plugging in accessory devices.
Manufacturers are creating cameras, modems, phones, GPS (global positioning system) modules, MP3 players, electronic books and reference libraries, keyboards and other products to take advantage of Springboard.
For his demonstration, Mr Holzman used a just-released Springboard plug-in which allows the Visor user to run Powerpoint slide shows.
The first Visor reached the market in August 1999, and sales passed one million last November. It now has about 21 per cent of the handheld computer market, compared with Palm's 66 per cent and the single-figure share enjoyed by the various Windows CE devices.
Visors should be in shops in the next couple of weeks, with the entry-level Visor Deluxe expected to cost about $699, including GST.
V is for Visor and versatility
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