It is too big to fit in a pocket, too expensive to buy on a whim, and at first glance it resembles the head of a robot flattened by a steamroller.
But the AT&T EO Personal Communicator 440 is still an intriguing device, and it provides important wireless communications and computing tools for mobile executives.
The AT&T EO Personal Communicator 440, until recently known as the EO Personal Communicator -- shorter, but still not as catchy as "Newton" or "Zoomer" -- is a pen-based portable computer that is finding the greatest success among workers and executives who need to fill out forms, keep data bases, send and receive faxes, check electronic mail and make telephone calls when there are no phone lines around.
On its most basic level, the AT&T EO Personal Communicator competes with the Apple Newton, the Tandy-Casio Zoomer and other so-called personal digital assistants.
Like those, AT&T's machine comes with a personal information management program -- called Personal Perspective -- that keeps track of telephone numbers, appointments and addresses.
But at a cost of nearly $2,000 for a model with 8 megabytes of system memory and a modem, there must be a more compelling reason to carry this device than logging phone numbers and meetings.
The compelling reason, for many,is the combination of wireless communications and computing. The AT&T EO computer does all the things that the Newton and Zoomer promise to do, including sending fax and E-mail messages.
To take full advantage of the wireless communications strengths of the AT&T EO Personal Communicator, however, the cellular phone and data module, which costs $500 extra, must be added.
AT&T recently cut the prices for both the computer and its accessories -- the cellular module was $799, the base computer $2,799 -- but at $2,500 for this setup it is still a relatively expensive system.
If price is no object, and if the executive doesn't not mind carrying a fairly bulky note pad, there is much to like about the AT&T EO computer. It uses an impressive pen-based operating system called Pen Point, developed by the Go Corp.
Go was an early proponent of pen-based computing, in which the actions of the software are controlled by a stylus instead of a keyboard or mouse. The pen has found a home in such portable computers as the Newton, the Zoomer, Compaq's new Concerto and others.
