With all the PCMCIA-less UMPC floating around the marketplace it was somewhat inevitable that the big Telcos would come to the party and provide a USB solution. So far we have seen a various USB to PCMCIA cards of which most rate very poorly, here is a list of a few a friend of mine found:
- Two cards proven to have "some" success
- Another contender
- Or, type PCMCIA into this website's search box
If that's not enough how about pairing your phone, and using it as a modem?
It seems the frutopia we're all looking for still alludes - or does it? Now some of you may have seen this but, as usual, I'm keen know your thoughts. Vodafone Australia has released a USB 3G Modem!!! No longer do we need to buy a PCMCIA modem, and a futile USB adapter. Now we have an all-in-one solution from one of the world's biggest providers. I know James Kendrick follows these developments very closely so I'm interested if James has something equivalent in the US of A??? Maybe my man Chippy can tell us about it in Europe?
Here are the details of the Aussie aproved card:
Technical specifications
- 3G broadband with a maximum download rate of 3.6Mbps and upload rate of 384kbps
- 3G with a maximum download rate of 384kbps and upload rate of 128kbps
- GPRS with a maximum download rate of 49kbps
- 3G broadband/3G 2100MHz
- GPRS 900/1800/1900MHz
- Internal antenna
- Weight <>
- Dimensions 89 mm (D) x 43 mm (W) x 14.5mm (H)
System requirements
PC User
- A PC with Windows 2000 or Windows XP
- 1 x USB port. USB 2.0 recommended
- At least 100Mb free disk space and 128Mb RAM Apple Mac
PowerBook G4
- Mac OS X 10.2.6 or higher
- Mac OS X 10.4.3 recommended
- 1 x USB port. USB 2.0 recommended
So, is the future in a dongle transferable from device to device? Or is everyone swaying to embedded sim card slots in our Mobile pcs? Maybe this is good enough, if not better??? Over to you.