That's why I picked it myself. It doesn't make it go much faster, but it's nice not having to babysit colony frigs. Just take out the pirates, colonize, and move on. But the ion bolt does help it to hold its own in combat, or at least play a useful role.
It's imho still slower then a Kol-colony ship combo. A Kol can clear planets from pirates so fast, that you'll need 2 colony ships to keep up with colonizing them ie. antimatter regeneration for the colonize ability.
It's shield ability also makes it the best capital killer, since with it it can soak up damage like no other ship.
The problem with using the Akkan also as a colonizer is, that you have to spend an ability point for it, which you could have used to either get the flak ability or better shielding with the Kol and it also uses antimatter which you then can't use on better abilities like the Kols Gauss cannon. Using colony ships is very useful, since you then can use their antimatter instead of the capital.
And, last but not least, colony ships are just so cheap, it's no problem to build a second one in the beginning.
