Comments on: Review: Visor Beat Plus

To some, one of the few things holding the Palm platform back from being perfect for games is its weak support for sound. The unamplified internal speaker on most Palm OS handhelds is extremely limited. For Visor owners, a good solution for this is the Beat Plus. Frequent reviewer Robert Zach has been testing one of these Springboards and brings us his impressions.

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MP3 corrupt...

GregGaub @ 9/3/2001 11:42:02 AM #

I can't seem to get a copy of that MP3 sample of the intro music. Can you upload a new copy of it for us to download? Thanks!

RE: MP3 corrupt...

JET8810 @ 9/3/2001 12:16:06 PM #

same here! ED please reupload the MP3 file! thanx...

FIX THE MP3!!!

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/3/2001 11:16:16 PM #

I wanna hear it, man!

Lemme hear it!

RE: MP3 corrupt...

Ed @ 9/4/2001 9:58:14 AM #

Try it now.

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News Editor

no MP3 decoder?

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/3/2001 2:09:26 PM #

So I'm guessing this thing doesn't have an MP3 decoder? For $80, couldn't they have spent a couple more bucks on a decoder chip?

Clie offer better product for the money

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/3/2001 2:31:33 PM #

If you spend $400 to get the Handspring Prism & additional $80 for Beat Plus, you might as well spend $500 to get the Sony Clie N710 with MP3 and better display quality.

RE: Clie offer better product for the money

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/3/2001 7:54:05 PM #

But if you've ALREADY spent $400+ on the Prism, then an $80 springboard isn't such a bad deal, ya know.

RE: Clie offer better product for the money

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/3/2001 9:08:55 PM #

I think that you are not making a valid comparison.

The Clie can play MP3's, but it's still has the same limitations in game sounds.

The Beat Module is a device that enhance the game sounds and not intended to play MP3's.

RE: Clie offer better product for the money

bcombee @ 9/3/2001 10:38:35 PM #

The CLIE's API for developers is very limited. Your sound must be in MP3 or ATRAC format to be output. The Beat Plus provides a much cleaner interface for developers to support application with rich aural requirements. You aren't going to use this as a music player, but you can do some pretty amazing things with it. I bet some programmer is right now working on a MOD-tracker that would let you compose digital music on a Handspring Visor.

Sound quality...

GregGaub @ 9/5/2001 12:51:43 AM #

Thanks to Ed for fixing the MP3 of the sample. Now that I've listened to it, I can comment on it.
Sounds great! As good, or better than GameBoy sounds!
But... was it someone's sister who composed and played that song? For the sake of Visor gamers around the world, I hope other game developers use better methods to create the audio tracks, 'cus if they're all that bad, the module would be more annoying than enjoyable. hehe.

Though, the suggestion that a program be written to be able to write and play your own music is a great one!