The big problem is that it crashes the visor every now and again. When this happens, you just have to do a soft reset. Okay so that's a pain. No hard resets yet.
OmniSky says it's working on a color version to be released in January 2002. Until then, the OmniSky browser is B&W. If you need color, use the Handspring Blazer browser.
All in all, I like the modem. It does have a few problems, but I'm hoping most will be fixed in upcoming software updates. Really, the only big problem is the resets.
If you're a gadget person like I am, you'll love it.
In a given week I spend equal parts of my time in the Boston/Providence area for work and back home, just south of Houston. In Providence the coverage is excellent outdoors and sometimes decent indoors depending on how close to the shore you are. In Houston the coverage is incredibly strong, even indoors. A few miles down the road towards Galveston and things aren't as rock solid.
So before you take in any comments from me or anyone else, realize that your satisfaction with this product will be porportional to the strength of your signal.
I run an online business that requires me to answer a lot of emails, lookup online orders and forward them to my fulfilment department. I interact with my online merchant account and place orders with my wholesale accounts. I am able to do all of this with my Omnisky Minstrel S wireless modem attached to a Handspring Visor Prism.
It allows me to cut and paste, access different pop mail accounts and fill out various forms -- even using secure protocol.
I am able to access Fidelity brokerage and manipulate my investments, along with accessing near real time data to help me with my decisions.
The battery life is pretty good, usually outlasting the Prism itself, and the supplied AC adapter is small enough to be carried along with your travel accessories for the Prism.
The data rate is 19.2k and I get nice smooth transfers that is fast enough to get the job done for me.
Yahoo! offers a program that allows you to chat via Yahoo! Messenger - but not the general chat program.
Aol has a wireless app also, but it basically lets you IM others and use email. I am told that ICQ has a new application that will work with it also.
This modem really expands your world. My wife and I have been driving around, talked about seeing a movie and were able to look up movie times at selected cinemas.
The most powerfull feature is being able to access my pop3 mail accounts and send any size email (or receive) that I want. It is fast and efficient.
Setup was a little difficult, but the customer service staff at Omnisky are really good and helped me through the first couple of problems. It had more to do with my unit being too far away from a good tower than anything else, but I did have a couple of other problems concerning the IP I was assigned not registering correctly.
Each time it happened (all in the first three days) I was able to call customer service, they had me turn my unit off for thirty minutes then back on - and it began working with no problems. After I learned to get a backup module, all of my problems were solved.
On the downside, I get an inordinate amount of faults that require me to do a soft reset. Pratically anytime that I fail to powerdown the modem before setting the device down to catch a call.
Nothing is lost, and moments later I am back online, but it is a little bewildering.
I should also note that I once had to perform a hard reset and lost all of my data because of a problem I had sychronizing the unit with Scout (Omnisky's online server). I lost signal in mid transfer and it corrupted an essential file.
Again, having a backup module takes the fear factor out - but once you have it setup correctly and make sure that you synchronize correctly (I would simply find a good signal, then remain staitionary until complete).
This is a tremendously fun tool....
Pros: the new Blazer web browser allows you to surf the net in color, Omnisky supports all the Palm VII web clipping apps, the modem recharges easily, service in the Northeast (at least in my experience) is good.
Cons: The setup can be difficult and frustrating (I had to do a hard reset and reinstall the Omnisky data as well as all my own data a few times, the modem can cause fatal errors if not shut off completely before you remove it from the visor, the Omnisky apps themselves do not support color browsing unless you use the Blazer browser for which you must now pay extra.
On the whole, I recommend the modem especially for use with the Visor prism. As a former Palm VIIx user, I thought I would miss the convenience of just flipping up the antenna and being immediately connected, but browsing in color on the easy to read Visor Prism screen is a pure pleasure. The modem is very compact and is much smaller than the one for the Palm III or V. I have had no problems with it since the initial setup .
