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3G Notebook In Review

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the good-ideas-whose-time-has-come dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Just found this review of a notebook with integrated 3G. It looks like you just slide a 3G sim into the machine and you get 3g data connectivity, it even drops down to edge or gprs if there's no 3g. The rest of the spec looks pretty awesome too with a 2.16ghz core duo chip and 2gb of ram. I want one of these! " Given my recent woes of getting my Nokia 6682 to actually work as a UTMS/EDGE modem for my Powerbook, the notion of integration is a really nice sounding idea.

2 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. SIM slot in the battery compartment? by merdaccia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Does that ring highly inconvenient with anyone else? Unless you have a dedicated 3G SIM card just for your laptop, you have to reboot each time you put in or take out the card.

    --

    *blinking cursor*

  2. Not sure if I'd want it by dada21 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I have T-Mobile's EDGE and GPRS through my Samsung t809 cell phone. Over the past 4 months my speeds have gotten faster and faster (upwards of 20K/s downloads), and some days I forget to log off before jumping on my WiFi at home. I'm very happy with the speed and the phone (even with many downsides).

    I've been thinking of getting a separate EDGE PC-Card so my laptop always has access, but then I realized it is more of a hassle and a cost than necessary. I think this laptop will have similar problems.

    First of all, you need a second SIM card, which usually means a second plan through your phone company. This could also mean a second contract and all that good stuff (depending on your provider). Also, this virtually locks you in to just that one PC. With my Samsung t809, I just link up via Bluetooth (automatic) from my laptop, my HP PDA, or even my home PC (my MCE box has bluetooth in case my home network is down). The benefit of being able to connect however I want is a great benefit.

    I've even used my t809 to hook up from a customer's office when they had a T1 outage. I didn't realize that their traffic routed through the dial-up connection until the office thanked me for fixing their problem. Here's something that wouldn't have worked very well if the laptop integrated it.

    I'm all for more integration, but Bluetooth really has made almost everything I used to desire pretty useless. I print via BT, connect to the web, even transfer files over WiFi (better battery life through BT).

    Who here could actually use this over a BT cell with EDGE/3G?