The Platinum makes the best use of the 33 MHz processor (cue the "Dragonball inside music").  PocketMark gives the VPL a 199 rating overall (203/178/201) compared to a 125 rating (129/101/132) for the Visor Deluxe and a 192 overall rating for the Visor Prism .  In actual use, the Prism blows away the VDX.  I had Star Pilot 3.10 refresh its greyscale night sky view on City magnitude setting with constellation lines turned on.  The Platinum took eight seconds to finish (slightly more than the Prism's 5 sec), while the Visor Deluxe took 14 seconds to draw the stars.  Under Rural magnitude (where more stars are calculated and drawn), the Platinum blew away the other Visors, taking only 29 seconds to finish drawing.  Comparatively, the Prism took 56 seconds and the Visor Deluxe took 1:06.  This gives credence to Handspring's labeling the Visor Platinum as "the infinitely expandable handheld computer with amazing speed."

Another application I could really tell a difference with the Platinum is AvantGo.  Loading up the home page with my channel listings could take almost 5 seconds with the Visor Deluxe.  The Visor Prism shortens that to about a second or two, but the Visor Platinum cut the load times to almost zero.  Individual page loading is also faster.

Platinum Accessories

Thankfully, the Visor Platinum is fully compatible with all Visor Deluxe accessories.  I guess if you want to get picky, since the Platinum has a silver back, you would think that those ice modules may not look good in it -- but they do.  I tried out the MiniJam in the Platinum, and it looks fine to me.  One great thing about the Platinum is that you won't have to worry about getting a different keyboard or case.

Conclusion