Motorola’s new top-end cellphone would not look amiss in William Shatner’s hands
David Shapshak
Motorola’s clam shell cellphones have always reminded me of the Star Trek communicator, none more so than the latest top-end phone that features a powerful personal digital assistant (PDA).
The Accompli 008, which features a Palm-like touch screen, would not look amiss in William Shatner’s hands in a futuristic setting, nor would its functionality be lacking.
However, by far the most impressive feature is the ability to run Java, the computer programming language that runs on any platform. Java applications are gaining a significant foothold on the mobile platform for running everything from games to business tickers. What sets Java apart is its ability to create “executable content” or what are called self-running applications.
This is not the only “first” for the Accompli, it is also the first phone launched in South Africa that can operate on the much-vaunted general packet radio services (GPRS) networks that, when rolled out next year, will allow for a super-fast, always-on Internet connection for mobile phones.
The device functions very effect- ively as a cellphone but its fantastic added value is in the ability to provide such a small PDA. It is very small indeed, much smaller than most PDAs and avoids one of the pitfalls of PDA-phone combos by staying true to the phone size and format. What’s more, like all PDAs it synchronises with Outlook, transferring all your contacts, appointments and e-mail addresses. Once you’ve blundered through the set-up difficulties of the Starfish TrueSynch software, it synchs very well. After all, while we wait for GPRS and other revolutionary services, many PDAs function as a diary and contacts book away from a computer.
This is part of Motorola’s vision for 2002, as explained by Brian Burns, the product manager for the company’s personal communications division. “All the phones are centred on the individual,” he says, adding the rider that everyone from Microsoft down believes will ultimately be true: “The Net will unite everything at the end of the day. E-mail is a necessary tool.”
To this end the phone has a personal information manager and can browse the Internet.
In phone mode the touch screen displays a normal keypad with the numbers sufficiently far apart to avoid pushing the wrong one. It has a stylus tucked behind that lets you access the usual range of functions, including SMS and e-mail.
But it suffers by comparison to the original stylus-touch screen PDA, the Palm. It’s not that the Accompli is anything but impressive, it is just that its touch screen and interface are light years behind Palm’s. And, if your market is likely to be Palm users, then why not mimic the operating system they know so well. I struggled with the handwriting recognition but the keyboard emulator worked perfectly.
Everything else though exceeds expectations. The 155g phone uses its touchscreen cleverly to provide added functionality an icon at the bottom of the screen brings up a menu of functions related to the current task and has numerous features for the fun stuff, like 64 ring tone slots and numerous Java-based games.
Games-maker Sega is porting games it developed through Java to use on cellphones. “It’s a big focus,” says Burns. “The nice thing about it is that the Java standard is open, so any third party can write applications for it. We’re moving away from proprietary applications.”
These Java applications are widely considered the sleeper in cellular circles. “The key to the future is applications and content,” says Burns.
He demonstrated a dial-up connection to Reuters news and stock feed in London running at 835 bytes a second, which is very good considering it had to go via London to access the information. “If the server is based on a [local] dial-up number you will get almost the full capacity of what’s available to you [in terms of bandwidth],” he says. Motorola demonstrated an Accompli accessing data over a GPRS pilot on the Vodacom network at 115 kilobytes a second, which is about double the connection speed of a landline modem.
Another GPRS phone launched by Motorola recently is the much slimmer and sexier V.66, which is the ultra-light top-end phone that now features a front cover bezel that can be replaced with a customised one. Apparently in Saudi Arabia, one Middle East-based Motorola executive said, jewellers have created bezels with gold and diamond inlays. Must-have accessories differ greatly around the world, it seems, even to the ironic point where they out-price the actual phone.
The V.66 is tiny (it weighs just 79g and occupies only 65cc of space) without losing any features.
One of Motorola’s top three consumer phones the others are the Timeport T280 with its little four-way joystick and the sexy anodise aluminium housing V.50 it features a new operating system and hardware platform that has a direct USB interface for synchronising with your computer.
The new user interface is much easier to use. It is a scrolling-based menu with soft keys and small icons attached, and you can change the zoom, or size of the icons, by pressing the menu button twice. This new menu structure also allows you to reorganise menu items. You can also change the background lighting and the phones have tri-band functionality which means that they work on the 900 and 1800MHz GSM spectrums and GPRS.
The top three also have radios built into them, and cleverly use the headset cable as the external radio antennae. You can tune, preset and store a variety of stations and listen in stereo. Calls automatically mute the radio.
All three have a range of useful Motorola functions: VoiceNotes (lets you store three minutes of messages or reminders), a personal information management system (like a diary and contacts book) and TrueSync (which synchronises the phone with your PC and Outlook), as well as a new range of games.