New Phones Deliver PIM Functions
By Joseph Palenchar -- TWICE, 10/9/2000
CHICAGO -- Wireless phones introduced by Motorola, NeoPoint and Siemens at the PCIA GlobalXChange show deliver some of the functionality of PDAs even though they lack the Palm and Epoc operating systems that will appear in other phones.
The phones incorporate personal information manager (PIM) functions that can by synchronized with popular desktop PIMs.
In unveiling the successors to its two current CDMA smart phones, NeoPoint trimmed weight to 5.5 ounces from 6.5 ounces while retaining an 11-line display, extending their digital standby time to 120 hours from 40, boosting memory to 1MB from 512KB, and adding two-way SMS. Digital talktime remains 2.5 hours.
Both NeoPoint models are also the company's first to accept a small snap-on QWERTY keyboard to speed up message composition.
Unlike their predecessors, the new NeoPoint models provide wireless access to a user's existing POP3 and IMAP4 e-mail accounts, giving the phones the same e-mail address as a user's home or office desktop PC.
NeoPoint's 2000, a dual-band 1.9GHz digital/800MHz analog model, will be available to carriers in the fourth quarter, followed in the late first quarter by the 2600, the company's first CDMA trimode. The 2000 will be priced around $199, and the 2600 will have a "slight premium," said senior product manager Scott Papineau. Keyboard pricing wasn't announced.
For its part, Motorola unveiled the Bluetooth-equipped trimode CDMA Timeport 270 with PIM functions (see story at right).
Motorola also included PIM functions in one of two new clamshell-style GSM phones, which look like two-way pagers equipped with a combination dialing keypad/QWERTY keyboard. Their primary purpose is two-way messaging, but they can also be used with a hands-free headset to make wireless phone calls. Both will be available to carriers in the first quarter.
The PIM-equipped model is the Accompli 009, a 5.6-ounce triband model that operates in GSM networks in the United States and other countries. It features color display, microbrowser, two-way SMS, access to POP3 e-mail servers, and a Motorola-developed programmable operating system capable of running application programs.
The Accompli 009 also supports circuit-switched data and GPRS packet-data transmission. It will eventually incorporate IMAP4-server access. Pricing wasn't disclosed, but step-up two-way pagers from Motorola retail for $300 to $400 without wireless-voice capability.
Motorola's second message-centric GSM phone is less featured and more youth-oriented. The V.100 at 4.4 ounces lacks GPRS, programmable OS, POP3 e-mail access and PIM applications, though it features a telephone directory. It's a single-band 1.9GHz model that, like the 009, features voice dialing.
Steve Shapiro, marketing director in Motorola's personal communications sector, said similar devices for CDMA and TDMA networks in the United States will be available from Motorola when those networks launch two-way SMS.
In returning to the U.S. handset market, Siemens unveiled a triple-band GSM phone whose PIM applications synchronize with a desktop's Microsoft Outlook program via a cable or infrared.
The silver-finish phone, available to U.S. carriers by the end of the year, weighs only 3.4 ounces with standard lithium-ion battery delivering up to three hours of talktime or up to about 10.5 days of standby. It features internal antenna, five-minute voice recorder, vibrating alert, microbrowser and predictive keypad. Expected carrier pricing wasn't disclosed.
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