Two weeks with the Motoroloa Envoy

[Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

I have had a Motorola Envoy for two weeks now and have used it a lot. The
Envoy is a blend of Motorola radio technology and General Magic software. As
many of you know I have used a SOny Magic Link prior  to getting the Envoy
so my comments are still valid for the general software environment of the
GM side. By the way, I have essentially given up trying to get any
assistance from General Magic in spite of repeated promises to help they do
nothing and ignore requests. Maybe after their IPO they are sitting counting
their net worth and not their customers.


My bottom line on the Envoy is very positive. It has become part of me as
few devices have. The combination of the Artis radionet, decent email
software, the OAG via radio links is a winner. There are problems that I
will briefly comment on below but for a first try it is very good. One
expects even better in future generations of the Envoy.


The negatives revolve arround the interference of Radiomail and the ATT
Persalink wire email. They both use the same user agent and there seems to
be no effective way of telling the system which route to use as the default
so much of the time I have to manaully remind the system to use the
radiolink. Minor but annoying. The major annoyance and  this is GM' s
problem is that you either capture each email address that comes into your
unit or none. If you set to capture all you get filled up and if it is set
to none you have no real easy way of saying put this sender address in my
adddress book. A major pain in the neck and one that sounds real easy to
fix. Final short fall is the nick/cad battery that has a short life ~ 4
hours for me. Time for Nick/Hydride.


The positives vastly outway these nits, packaging is very good (if only the
option button was in the right place -- clearly the case designer never used
a Sony or GM.), functionality is very good. Even the carrying case is
excellent. and Motorola sent automatically the first software fix!!.


Artis and Radiomail user contacts are very good. Only flaw is Artis quotes
two business days for service start of changes. They usually beat that but
they should take a lession for ATT on this one (15 minutes). All the people
were friendly and helped. (I will say nothing about GM -- see above).


More as I come up to speed more but well worthwhile using. Artis coverage is
very good (they quote 98% of the population) if expensive.


More letter


Dave