Ricochet was decent for its time, not blazing fast but much faster than trying to do dialup over a cell phone. I used it routinely on the train between NYC and White Plains and it was fine for checking mail or very basic web surfing. IIRC the modem battery didn't last particularly long (and this was before USB became the defacto charging standard). With Ricochet's bankruptcy I switched to the Omnisky modem that piggy backed onto a HandSpring Visor for another year.
What was the Visor like? I never used one.
Visor was a competitor to Palm by the founders of Palm. I had had a Palm Pilot which I kind of used but it always felt like a hassle to use. Visor was what Palm should have released (I think it was the first color PalmOS handheld, before Palm). Ran PalmOS, you could use Palm apps on it. Was more useful to me for day to day stuff, especially with the Omnisky modem. I could stay reasonable in touch while traveling without cracking open my laptop and dialing in (wifi was starting to be available but was far from ubiquitous in airports or to the public).