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DesignTechnica Reviews Motorola Accompli 009

Posted by timothy on from the named-by-a-car-maker dept.

Ian Bell writes: "Designtechnica does a review of Motorola's new Accompli 009 2-way communicator. 'The ACCOMPLI sports the standard cast of communication and organization features - voice calling, calendar (syncs with Outlook or other personal information management programs), contacts, SMS, web browser, and a splash of ring tones and games. Not so standard is an RF modem that enables you to connect to the Internet through a data cable and operate as you would from a PC... ' While the features look good on paper, the unit has little to be desired. This is the first full review of the Accompli 009 on the net. Thanks guys."

8 of 68 comments (clear)

  1. Another option -- Handspring Treo by jwinter1 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Still not the ideal (read the review) cellphone/portable, but at least it has different flaws.

    Review by Philip Greenspun.

    Maybe Microsoft will get it right.

    --
    Anything you can do, I can do meta.
  2. Re:Hmm by talonyx · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yes, just like all those Outlook viruses that affect Palm or Handspring PDAs and Pocket PC's.

    Sorry, try again.

  3. Full Review? by shooz · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've been waiting for this device to be available for quite some and I was excited to see the "first full review available on the net". This review seems to be cut short because the reviewer had a hard time with the navigation. Very professional.

    Does anyone have any real world experience with this device? I like the design, and Motorola also makes an SDK available for their WisdomOS so you can develop your own apps.

    Some links:

    Accompli 009 Home page:
    http://www.motorola.com/MIMS/MSPG/Products/ Two-way /accompli009

    WisdomOS Home Page:
    http://www.motorola.com/MSP/products/wisdom /index. html

  4. Re:Addendum:Target price? by uigrad_2000 · · Score: 3, Informative

    $649

    --
    Free unix account: freeshell.org
  5. Re:Proprietary PIM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    I have some experience with this stuff. One of the reasons why the PIM features are different and proprietary for CDMA phones (gsm is different) is because the older CDMA reference board uses an x86 chip. Because of how x86 handles memory, it was difficult to utilize the memory effectively & easily. A lot of phone manufacturers wrote their own proprietary PIM features, which are still being used today. Most of the newer phones CDMA, GSM and TDMA use an ARM or some other type of RISC processor, so eventually the built in PIM features of phones will become more standard.

  6. These are pretty nice. by laserjet · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Accompli is a nice device for those who need it. While I don't have one, I have it's "younger cousin", the Motorola Timport P935 2-way pager. It has the same keyboard layout and basic design as the Accompli, but has a monochrome screen and a 2-way pager transmitter instead of cell-phone transmitter.

    With my timeport, I was able to do away with both my palm and my cell phone, and I get unlimited paging and messaging for about $20 a month, instead of the $35/month for my cell phone.

    The Wisdom OS that these device run is not as nice as Palm OS, but it is enough for what I need. There is not a whole lot of software for them, and you are pretty much restricted to the applications that come with them - again, this is fine, because that's all I use.

    They are not as intuitive to use as Palms, but that is the price I am willing to pay to consolidate a communications device and PDA into one unit, about the size of a pack of cigarettes. For those who need to do this and don't need the extra fuzz that PDA's havem these are good niche devices, and the hardware is quality built, like most Motorol devices.

    I would encourage anyone interested to go look at a demo at a store and see if it would be right for you.

    --
    Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
  7. The 008 is better. by Moderation+abuser · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.motorola008.com/008.html

    Supports Email, POP, Jabber, drawings, notepad, alarm clock, SMS, you know, all the standard PIM stuff and is an intuitive and useful phone into the bargain. A fraction on the large size, but they've got a smaller one on the way.

    It's *really* good for SMSs, I set up SMS alerting on some of our systems and at one point, got spammed by a bug in the alerting mechanism to the tune of around 9,000 SMS messages. The 008 handled it no problem. Took around 4 days to download and trash all the messages, but I didn't have to do anything manually once the inbox was configured.

    --
    Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
  8. Modem "not so standard" - Yes it is by EMIce · · Score: 2, Informative
    Not so standard is an RF modem that enables you to connect to the Internet through a data cable and operate as you would from a PC.
    Many manufacturers have been including the ability for a cell phone to emulate a modem - for years. Motorola and Samsung are prime examples, most of their models have done this for a while. The cell phone has a serial port that makes the modem AT command set. It pretends like it is dialing but connects directly to the digital network, all you need is a ppp enabled machine. This has allowed speeds to go from ~9600bps to 19200bps, since the modem no longer has to modulate data over a compressed 19.2kbps voice link. The only catch is older phones didn't always come with the cable. If you want one get an oem cable through an online vendor, Motorla wants 150 big ones for a cable + CD for an older phone.

    Here is some more info:
    GRPS Phones

    For Infra-Red connectivity - Linux HOWTO