So we've been a little lax about writing us up the Verizon V640 EV-DO ExpressCard we've had sitting around here for a couple of weeks, but there's not really a whole lot to say -- the thing is small, solid, and fast as the dickens. Like, seriously, we mean fast. We didn't have an ExpressCard equipped PC machine handy, but if your Mac has the latest OS X updates you should already have the drivers installed to make this thing hum, so installation is literally as simple as inserting, clicking ok to install the device, and then hitting connect. Obviously the first thing we did was test the bandwidth, and we were pleasantly surprised after spending as much time with the Kyocera KPC650 as we have in the past few months: for starters we got about 2mbps down, and 120kbps up. Click on for a ton of pictures of the ritual unboxing, it's a joy.
Here's the speed we got from the
Speakeasy Speed Test (our fav).
Less than 1/4th the downstream speed of our home connection, but more than a third of the upstream. Not bad!
posted August 24th 2006 11:53AM
Hey, I was looking at something like this for my MPB, but I was curious... Is this something you just buy and use, or do you have to pay to use the cellular network, and if so, is it a one-time fee or a monthly thing?
This is most definitely something that you need to pay a monthly rate to use, and yes, it does use the cellular network.
It's $99 for the device with a two year contract, but the wireless service is a staggering $59.99 / month.
yeah... you really have to be a true road warrior to justify that.
@ Macobyte:
This is something that you will have to purchase, and then pay monthly via a plan.
If you have one, you could also use your Treo 700p as an EV-DO modem. I do it all the time and get the same performance (in areas that have EV-DO coverage). Sprint claims it has more EV-DO coverage than other providers but even when there's no EV-DO coverage, I can still use the 700p at dialup speeds (like when I'm in WV...
Verizon charges $79 a month with no contract, $59 a month for a contract. Broadband speeds are available in most urban locations in my experience but you can end up dropping off to "national access" (near dial-up) speeds when you get into the countryside and zero speed if no verison covereage. See: http://b2b.vzw.com/productsservices/wirelessinternet/
hey fellas, VZW requires a minimun 1yr agreenment for anyone looking to get some evdo love. The price for the service is 79.99 and drops to 59.99 with a 2 yr contract if you have voice service
Its 59.99 per month with a Verizon voice line. 79.99 if you dont. It requires a one or two year contract either way, but the 59.99 price is only available with the 2 year contract. The price of the equipment changes based on the contract length also.
@ Macobyte: dude, nothing personal, but I fucking LOL'd. =D
Dammit, when ARE they gonna blanket Manhattan with WiFi? And not a SUCKY connection behind it, I'm talking at least 1.5Mbps...
Can you use this with OS X to share your internet connection over Wifi, as a short range access point? As for the price, there are also a lot of corperate discounts for it, and if you only use one computer (or a stand alone wifi router - does anyone know if there are express card equipped models yet?), it could replace your in-home broadband, so it's really only $20 a month for the mobile access.
$59.99 to $79.99 plus a cap at 5GB worth of downloads per month. Because the way Verizon sees it, anything over 5GB a month is "unauthorized use" and will terninate you.
Just a thought.
What kind of internet are you guys using and how much must it cost!!! We have the 20$ DSL here in Kansas and I'm only getting a 1286 download speed! Apparently that is horrible.
(my upload speed isn't though at 281)
any way to hook up my macbook.. that doesnt have this slot?
Is there an adapter to allow this card to also work in the older PC slots? I have a Mac Book Pro and a Toshiba M205 I would love to have a card that works in both. Since this card uses EVDO I can not just swap the sim card.
I've been using this card in my macbook pro for a few weeks and it's pretty good. Location is the big key as it really affects the connection speed. One problem - in my system - if I leave the card in and the mac sleeps while the connection is established the connection fails. There's no way to re-connect. It requires a re-boot which locks up the system. i've resorted to powering it down with the on/off switch. It won't power down by itself.
Hopefully, they're working on a fix for this.
The card truly offers you freedom of movement. I've used it in Miami, LA, Chicago, etc.
for those asking about macs with PCMCIA slots, look here:
http://www.evdoinfo.com/Tips/PC_5220/Mac_EVDO_20050712475/
and here for express card macs:
http://www.evdoinfo.com/Tips/PC_5220/MacBook_Pro_and_EVDO_20060111671/
@ DAvid: I heard rumblings about a usb adapter for Express Cards that will allow Macbooks to work with this type of stuff, but as in my previous post, if you have a phone that has EVDO built in, then it more than likely can be used as a DSL modem.
Rumblings of an ExpressCard caddy are true, with several caveats. See .
i would like to know if anyone has heard of this FRANKLIN USB EVDO Modem, it is suppose to work with the MACBOOK. is it worth getting? here is the site :http://www.evdoinfo.com/Tips/PC_5220/Franklin_EVDO_USB_Modem_Review_-_CDU550_20060809802/
I've used one of these cards for my laptop and home PC for about 6 months the broad band works ok (I'm way out in the boonies) but every time I launch my cisco vpn software the broadband connections acts like it is a hack attack and drops the connection. For me the vpn "feature" is worthless.
If anyone has a fix I'll sure appreciate it. I'm running version 5.9.3 of the software but my firmware is CG1.0.6 (april '05)!
I have a Veruzon Express card that I use on my laptop which operates with Vista. I would like to use this card to access the net on my desktop as well which operates with XP and has no express slot. Is it possible to get a router that will utilize the express card so that I can access it with the desktop. Thanks for any information in this regard.
Hal
I have the V640 and I am using with a Mac book pro. Right now I just access the internet via my Mac platform. Is it possible to access the internet using parallels with my mac running XP? I was told that I have to choose one or the other, and that I can't access the internet on my Mac both with OSX and XP. I have to access some websites that won't run off of my Mac.