Sony Ericsson's GC82 EDGE Card

In most major markets around the US, AT&T Wireless has upgraded their network with a higher speed data service called EDGE. Cingular has launched EDGE in a few states as well. It's basically GPRS on steroids, finally bringing America's GSM networks up to 21st century data speeds. A few phones have been announced with EDGE, but only the Nokia 6200/6220 is on sale so far. If you want take real advantage of EDGE's raw speed (which tops at whopping 164 kbps), you'll need a PC Card and a laptop.

JIWire, a Wi-Fi networking site, reviews the Sony Ericsson GC82 — everything about it, right down to the case it comes in (which is pretty swank, actually). They even tested its performance around the Eastern Seaboard and got anywhere from 50 to 155 kbps downloads. That's way faster than GPRS, and on par with CDMA 1xRTT in terms of speed, but not quite in terms of coverage — yet. Since EDGE isn't everywhere, the card can drop down GPRS where EDGE isn't available so your laptop can stay connected in pretty much every major city in the States, and doesn't that make your laptop (and you) happy?