I purchased a Visor almost a year ago upon the recommendation of a friend. I told myself (and my justifiably skeptical fiance) that it would help me stay on top of projects, organize my schedule, and balance my checkbook. In short, purchasing a Handspring Visor would be nothing short of a life changing decision. Now that love had my Visor almost a year, it's time to see if the Visor has the ability to change your life.

The Handspring Visor is equipped with the Palm OS found in the Palm III. Text is simple to enter using the Graffiti method of text entry. If you've used a Palm device before, you'll notice very little difference in the way that the two devices operate. What separates the Visor from the Palm III is it's expandability. Users can insert Springboard modules into the top of the Visor that allow the device to become everything from a video game machine to a digital camera to an MP3 player. I can't speak to the benefits of the Visor's expandability, as I have not been able to afford any of the modules, so I'll leave it at that, only saying that it's a great idea that I soon hope to be able to take advantage of.

The biggest benefit of the Handspring Visor is its ability to organize your schedule and contacts. With the push of a button, appointments and contacts can be synchronized with the schedule and contacts on your computer. This is where I've experienced the most benefit from my purchase. I enter my work schedule into the device and then sync it with my appointments and events from the planner on my computer (I use the Palm Desktop software that came with the Visor). Not only that, but you'll never have to scour the earth at the beginning of each year searching for those damned inserts for your paper planner that just never seem to be available until June.

Another benefit of the Visor is the contact list. Much like the scheduler, I can sync contacts from my email application with those that I enter into the device. What I like best about the contact list is how easy it is to organize. With just a touch of the stylus, I can switch views between the different contact groups. If I need to get a customer's phone number, I select the customer folder and save myself the time of scanning through all the names in my contact list.

Not only do you get a wealth of software built into the Visor, you also have the opportunity to download the software you need (or want) from any number of websites. Some are free (those are the ones that I download), others are available for purchase. The obvious benefit of all this software is that if you need specialty applications for your fields of work or fields of interest, chances are you'll find it. I'm not quite organized enough to enter all my cd's into a database on the Visor, but I know that if I wanted to, I could download an application that would allow me to do just that.

For the benefit of those who are not productive every hour you're awake, there are also games available for the Visor. Not that I would ever be unproductive at work, but in case I get the urge, I've got a host of games loaded for those moments when I need to escape. What is great about this is that people see you tapping away on your organizer, not knowing that you are playing Galaga or Frogger. Again, not that anyone would do such a thing.

Truth be told, the Visor has changed my life. I do not complain anymore about having to tote a large day planner around; the Visor slips right into my bag. I'm much more organized; gone are the scraps of paper that used to somehow multiply in my pockets and on my dresser reminding me of events and phone numbers. In a little less than a year, this little box of plastic has incorporated itself into my life the way no paper planner ever could. It might be a bit of a stretch to say that the Handspring Visor will cause world peace or cure world hunger, but with all those Springboard Expansion Modules, who knows what might happen?