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Several of my friends have purchased Visors in the last 6 months. I wanted one but it seemed like overkill for my needs; what I really needed was a clock, a calendar, a scheduler with an alarm, a notepad, a calculator, and a name and phone number list. I was on the verge of buying a Visor myself when I happened to purchase a Rolodex/Franklin RF-192 for my daughter to help her keep track of her assignments. I took a close look at it and realized that I also needed an anniversary reminder to help me with all the birthdays that I tend to forget.
The RF-192 measures 96mm x 143mm x 14mm (about 3.8" x 5.6" by .55") and weighs 4.5 ounces with batteries. The non-upgradeable ROM includes the following functions:- Anniversary Reminder (you get a pop-up alert each time you turn on the PDA on the anniversary date and for the six days prior)
- Monthly Calendar
- Business and Personal Telephone Directories
- Calculator
- Data synchronization
- Expense Manager
- Home/World Clocks with alarm
- Memo Pad
- Memory Gauge
- Metric and Currency Converter
- Password Protection (up to a 6-digit number)
- Scheduler with Alarm (when the alarm goes off the PDA wakes up if turned off, beeps, and displays the message)
- To-Do List
Other features include:- 6-line display with backlight (the backlight provides a very even coverage of green light)
- 12- and 24-hour time displays
- 192 KB of storage
- Automatic shutoff (after about five minutes of no key press)
- Daylight Savings Time
- DataGuardŽ (I think this refers to the PDA's ability to retain data for 30 seconds while you change batteries. Woohoo!)
- Keytone
- PC Synchronization software and cable
- Six language prompts including English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese
The case is slightly curved, has very rounded edges, and is thinner on the edges than in the center -- making it much more pocketable than its dimensions would indicate. Its sleek shape fits well in the palms enabling fairly efficient thumb-typing on the little qwerty keyboard. I can thumb-type considerably faster than my buddies can scribble into their Visors.
There is a pair of up/down search keys to the left of the LCD screen. Those little arrow keys let you scroll the various entries through the display. To the right of the screen is a numeric keypad with a calculator-style layout. And, immediately above the qwerty keyboard is a row of eleven function keys that let you select the various modes, turn on the backlight, or initiate a data transfer to your PC.
The biggest drawbacks I've found are:- Requires Windows to back up to your PC (I run Linux)
- Memo entries are limited to just over 100 characters (I'm learning to be concise!)
- There are no weekly repeating alarms (but it's easy to reset a scheduled event for 7 days later)
- There is only one daily repeating alarm
- There are no games or other custom programs
- The manual is tiny (100mm x 63mm) and is printed in a near-microscopic font (fortunately, after 15 minutes with a magnifying glass, you will never need the manual again; without the manual, it might take you 30 minutes to figure out all the important functions)
Without the ability to carry around whole novels like the Palm Pilots and Visors, and without custom programs, 192K bytes of memory is a lot. I delete notes and scheduled events as I use them and have been running at about 95% of my memory free for the past week. At the rate I'm consuming memory, I shouldn't have to do a serious purge for a year or two. With luck, I may still be using the original set of batteries, another advantage over the more powerful Palm OS PDA's.
I'm very satisfied with the RF-192 and I am especially happy with the price. Suggested retail is $34.95 but I only paid US$22.47 plus tax at the local Wal-Mart. Circuit City also has them for $29.95. Those prices include batteries (2xCR2032), Windows 9X CD, and a serial cable for connection to a PC.
I may yet buy a Visor for the sheer geek appeal, but for my actual needs, the RF-192 is a perfectly adequate solution.
Other articles by Ray Yeargin |
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