This article is more than 1 year old

Handspring preps Prism II?

Sounds a little too much like last week's fake Sony...

Handspring's anticipated pair of new Visors weren't launched last monday, as some sources had suggested, but the company is up to something if pics and details leaked to Palm Infocenter are anything to go by.

This time, the PDA is called the Prism II. As it's name suggests, it's a follow up to the original colour Visor, the Prism. The site's source claim it has a 16-bit 240x320 colour screen. It will run Palm OS 4 - essential, if it's to support that colour depth - on a 33MHz Dragonball processor, and ship with 16MB of RAM.

So far, so plausible. However, we're sceptical about some other suggested features. First, the Prism II is said to hold its OS code on Flash memory, to allow it to be upgradeable, which is possible but seems unlikely since Handspring has always avoided this in the past. Second, there's a mention of a virtual Graffiti area. Again, that's possible - the HandEra 330 Palm OS device has one - but it's a little too close to the recent, false Sony Clié PEG-N750C rumour to our mind.

Then there's the size. It's said to be even thinner than the Visor Edge, Handspring's top-end model which is sold on the back of its slimline casing. It seems unlikely to us that Handspring would maker a thinner model without the Edge brand. The image looks a bit like a bastardised Visor Platinum too - if it's not an outright fake, we wonder if it's an early mock up of an Edge prototype (given the pointed... well... edge along the bottom.

Elements of the spec. could have come from the rumoured Ace and Columbia PDAs Handspring was expected to have released last week. Anyone from Handspring keen to put us in the picture can email us here. ®

Related Stories

Handspring to update Visor line RSN
Handspring slices PDA prices by up to 25%

Related Link

Palm infocenter: Handspring to Release Prism II

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like