The novatel 720 would be a good device. You could use device as internet for your entire house. I have a old Fujitsu P1120 with a pc card slot. I have a new Hp with a express card slot. My setup is to enable internet sharing on the fujitu p1120, pluged into a linksys router for internet. Works great. Eventhough it is only rev 0 it is very fast. So you could install the mini PCIe card into your Q1 ( Samantha) and enable internet sharing by pluging the ethernet from Q1 to Router. You would have internet where ever you are. I think it would be a great project and a good cost saving measure. Internet at home mobile all through samantha. Yes the Macbook pro could use the shared internet. One bill for internet. I think that would be great.

Thanks,

Joshua A. Hall

I find this thought interesting. I /avoid/ laptops that have built in cellular connections simply because I don’t want my laptop to be tied to a particular technology or carrier.

I’ve usually upgraded my laptops about every two to three years, while my phone gets upgraded about every year.

I really don’t mind the tether, as long as it’s bluetooth.

Good points about the antenna. I may have to rig something….there’s another “con”. ;)

Personally, the thing I would be most concerned about is the antenna array in the device and whether it will allow you to get a sufficient signal to consider the WWAN effort worthwhile. With no one having done it before, this might be a version of “the surgery was successful and the patient still died”. I know that sounds odd, but some devices have not been cleared by the FCC for use in the US because of antenna arrays (Fujitsu P1610 for one), so it gets me a tad concerned.

I will say that I have been impressed with the tethering speeds that some are reporting using the new HTC Mogul. The reason for this is not only the EvDO Rev. A, but more importantly, the BT 2.0 functionality.

Of course, that require a whole new phone, on a carrier you don’t currently use, with an operating system you may or may not want. But it IS an alternative.

Personally, I’m waiting to see the XV6800 hit Verizon. If I don’t see some specs leak on a VZW Treo 800W that includes Rev. A, BT2.0 and GPS by that point, I’ll probably go with the XV6800. But that’s just me.

Either way, good luck Kevin!

Another thing to worry about is how would you wire up an antenna in the Q1?
The thing that made the Motion LE1700 upgrade easier is that it was meant to have a 3g option so there were antenna wires in there in the first place..

I currently don’t mind tethering, but having that less extra step to get online anywhere would be nice.

I’m a bit reluctant to sign a 2 year contract with another cell provider at this time though. I’m with AT&T and would like to use the flexibility of swapping SIM cards for now. So for me, a new UMPC with a SIM card slot in the future?
(Everun, Q1U?)

A scary scenario for you is being handcuffed into contracts by 3 cell phone providers! (Sprint/Verizon, TMobile, and AT&T for the iPhone).

But hey, if you go Verizon, you can go crazy and get your tranfers over 5GB’s to get out of the contract. Or better yet, start calling Sprint’s customer service over 60 times a month. ;)

I can’t wait to see how this turns out. I’m looking for a new laptop/umpc and I’m on the fence on the wwan options. I’m a t-mobile customer (love my dash!) and I remember their announcement on upgrading their data to HSDPA. It was sometime late last year when they announced that, but it said it would be available late 07 early 08. I might be wrong on that, anyone remember for sure? If it is correct it would be worth it for me to wait for a wwan connection, well besides my dash tethering. Can’t wait for your opinion.