You need access to communications and information wherever and whenever you want. Think that means carrying a mobile phone and PDA and catching CNN in your hotel room? Wrong. Just tote a pager. Are we serious? Absolutely. The Research in Motion RIM Inter@ctive Pager 850 and Motorola PageWriter 2000x will expand your notion of what the once-humble pager can do.
Both pagers let you create, send, receive, and reply to messages. The 6.7-ounce PageWriter 2000x is the larger of the two, edging into tiny notebook territory, complete with a brief boot-up time. Flipping open the pager turns the unit on and reveals a backlit QWERTY keyboard and LCD screen. A clear interface lets you scroll through options for sending and receiving messages. In addition to a collection of games, there are Notepad, To Do, and Scheduler—all applications you'd expect on a PDA. Its more than 4MB of memory is ample for saving messages and even optional applications you can download from Motorola's Web site.
The RIM Inter@ctive Pager 850 weighs just 4.1 ounces, and its miniature keyboard is spartan. But the responsive keys are amazingly comfortable to thumb-type on, and the trackwheel is ideal for scrolling through menus—just click to make a selection. The RIM pager has 2MB of memory and the usual options for two-way paging, including the ability to send messages to a fax machine, pager, or e-mail address, plus a calendar, address book, and task list.
Home Base Each pager comes with a docking station for battery recharging and syncing with PC information managers like Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Organizer. The RIM pager syncs via Intellisynch. (Motorola uses its slightly more intuitive TrueSync Software.)
The RIM is available through SkyTel and American Mobile for $59.95 per month for unlimited paging and e-mail. Best feature: American Mobile's eLink service lets you use your RIM to send, receive, and reply to messages using your POP3 home e-mail address. Essentially, the RIM pager becomes a virtual extension of the desktop PC.
The PageWriter is now available through Office Depot and SkyTel, and soon through PageNet and PageMart. Service is about $25 per month for 10,000 characters. The PageWriter can receive numeric or text messages sent via a toll-free number, e-mail, the Internet, or other PageWriters, and it can send text messages to e-mail addresses, fax machines, PageWriters and even phones numbers via a voice-to-text service. A growing list of optional services for both pagers lets you receive news, stock quotes and trading, and even soap opera updates.
The Motorola PageWriter 2000x gives you oodles of memory and lets you play 21 poker in your downtime. But we'll take the RIM Inter@ctive Pager 850 for its simplicity and universal access to e-mail.
RIM Inter@ctive Pager 850
Rating Five Stars
Verdict A quick and easy two-way pager.
Pros Small; simple to navigate; uses regular e-mail addresses.
Cons Limited additional functions.
$359 est. street price / Research in Motion / (800) 494-1727
Motorola PageWriter 2000x
Rating Four Stars
Verdict A capable but bulky interactive pager.
Pros Large screen; clear interface; additional apps available.
Cons Bulky; no POP3 e-mail access.
$360 est. street price / Motorola / (800) 548-9954
