OS Speed

So by now everyone is singing the virtues of USB, but how fast is the PalmOS 3.1h that comes with the Visor?  To find out, I used two programs that test the speed of your Palm-compatible -- BenchMark and PocketMark.  All of the tests below were done with no hacks turned on.

According to the Benchmark FAQ, it performs a CPU and memory-intensive Fibonacci calculation to test speed and bus bandwidth utilization.  Below are the ratings of some of the current Palm-compatibles.
 

Palm-Compatible	Benchmark Rating
Palm III	91%
Palm IIIx/V	100%
Palm Vx	122%
Visor DX	158%
TRGPro	161%

PocketMark is a similar tool for comparing the speed of the various Palm-compatibles.  PocketMark performs three tests: the first test, IntMark, is done using an algorithm to find perfect numbers, so it is a very CPU-intensive task with little memory impact.  The second test (MemMark) performs copies to/from a buffer (array), evaluating the RAM speed.  The last test (FloatMark) performs floating point calculations using NewFloatMgr routines.  The overall number is the PalmMarks in the far-right column.  Here are the results taken from the author’s website and from emails in varous user groups:
 

Palm-Compatible	IntMarks	MemMarks	FloatMarks	PalmMarks (overall)
Palm III	88	70	86	85
Palm IIIx/V	100	100	100	100
Palm Vx	116	113	113	115
Visor DX	129	101	132	125
TRGPro	100	111	100	102

It looks like Handspring optimized the PalmOS code very well in the Visor.  Looking at the BenchMark results, the TRGPro edged out the Visor because of the TRGPro’s better performance in memory-intensive procedures.  In the PocketMark overall results, however, the Visor surpasses even the Palm Vx, which has a faster processor and Palm OS 3.3.

Conclusion

The Handspring Visor is fast -- both in synchronizing and in PalmOS speed.  The PalmOS performance overall surpasses other Palm-compatibles, and the USB really flies during a HotSync™.