By Craig M. Bobchin
If you own a Handspring Visor, then you know it's an excellent PDA with few faults. However you've also come face to face with its one major flaw on a regular basis. No, it's not the software or the screen. It's the cover. Unlike the Palm series, the Visor has a cover that snaps off and then gets re-snapped to the back of the unit. If you have a large Springboard module in place, this may prove to be impossible. Also the cover may crack at the top, as mine did, requiring a replacement. So what's a person to do?
If you look on the Web, you'll see a growing number of cases for the Visor. They're almost as numerous as those for the Palm III series. In this series of articles, I'm going to take a look at six cases designed for the Visor. They are RhinoSkin's ShockSuit SportsCase and Ti Slider Hardcase, Rhodiana's Visor case, E&B Company's Slipper Visor, Vaja's CE781-N Visor series Flip Top Case, and Covertec's Cobra Case. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Hopefully you'll be able to pick one that fits your needs. I lived with each of these cases over the course of at least a week to get a good feel for them in daily use. All of the cases had belt clips, and I wore them as a regular part of my wardrobe.
In part one of this series, we'll look at RhinoSkin's ShockSuit SportsCase, Covertec's Cobra Case, and E&B Company's Slipper Visor.
RhinoSkin's ShockSuit SportCase
Rhinoskin is a well-known PDA case manufacturer. They have a complete line that covers just about any handheld you can imagine. Their ShockSuit SportsCase can be found at http://rhinoskin.com/shocksuit_visor_page.htm.
Visor unfriendly
When I received the ShockSuit, pictured in Figure A, my first thought was that it wasn't really designed with the Visor in mind.
FIGURE A
The ShockSuit didn't really seem to be designed with the Visor in mind. (click for larger image)
While the Web site made it sound like there was a version for the Handspring Visor, the unit I received was clearly designed for a Palm device. There's no hole cut for the IR port, which is on the left side of the Visor rather than the top as the Palm unit has it. There's also no way to perform a HotSync operation with the Visor while it's in the case.
The case is made out of sturdy foam, covered in neoprene, and was about half an inch to an inch wider than it needs to be. There's a lot of room for the unit to slide around, so even if there were an IR port, chances are that the IR port on the Visor wouldn't coincide with the hole in the case. The case isn't really designed for Springboard use, as it's impossible to change Springboards without removing the Visor from the case. Also, some of the larger Springboards may not fit.
