Novatel gets their XU870 HSDPA ExpressCard out the door

They laughed when you bought that fancy new laptop with an ExpressCard slot, they scoffed when you "gave into the man" and signed up for Cingular, and they've been waving that PCMCIA EV-DO card of theirs in your face for what seems like an eternity now, but your vindication is finally nigh! Novatel just announced that their Merlin XU870 HSDPA ExpressCard, the first of its kind, is now shipping. The card can manage HSDPA, UMTS, EDGE and GPRS, both here and abroad, and while it currently tops off at 3.6Mbps, a forthcoming software update will bump that to 7.2Mbps once the carriers are ready. Apparently this thing has already started to ship to leading carriers in Germany, Austria, Spain, Portugal and New Zealand, and while we're not exactly sure when you'll be able to grab this thing off the shelf of your neighborhood electronics shop in the States, the XU870 is official, legit, "shipping," and all that good stuff, so we're going have a party all the same. Who's bringing the chips?

[Via laptoping]

Update: launch2net also recently announced Mac support for this new swanky card, letting Mac users finally get their 3G on. [via MacUser]

[alex @ Oct 11th 2006 4:42PM]

If you prefer having more national coverage for your wireless broadband, you need to consider EVDO. There has been an EVDO ExpressCard solution out for months now, and MacBook Pro users are well taken care of at EVDOinfo.com!

[Sam @ Oct 11th 2006 4:47PM]

At the slow rate that Cingular rolls out new products, I expect to see this available around November 2007.

[david72 @ Dec 22nd 2006 11:21PM]

It's still 2006 and they're in stock, not too shabby on the price either: http://www.clearanceclub.com/depot/quelle_showroom.cgi?sku=6534 I'd rather get a cheap laptop and stuff one of these things in than shell out for something integrated...