W.WAN

Bought a cheap ex corporate laptop: it has a W. WAN card fitted - and has a SIM slot, which currently has a blank in it.

I am planning to remove the WWAN card, as I can replace it with a 250 GB mSATA SSD drive for about £50.

I know not if the WWAN supports 4G, or is less able.

Have not considered SIM only Mobile Broadband from the lappy, so before I remove said card, just thought I would check that I am not missing out on a worthwhile option.

Any WWs using SIM only Mobile Broadband from an enabled laptop?

Anything good, or bad, to say about it?

Well, I have gone ahead and ordered the mSATA SSD, to replace the card with solid state storage option. (In essence a second HDD on laptop)

I think I do not live the sort of lifestyle that requires a 3G/4G-enabled laptop: mustn't get seduced by technology for which I have no need!

Sorry priscus, went right over my head, hardware really isn't my thing.

I'm just grateful when the thing works!!

Sorry, I should not go over folk's heads.

Put simply, by accident I found myself with a laptop which could have used the same networks to get online as smartphones use.

I wanted to ask if anyone could speak to the desirability of such a feature.

However, I have now ordered instead a replacement device that amounts to a second hard drive on the lappy.

I do not like to put Windows and Linux partitions on the same drive: having them on physically separate drives avoids lots of potential problems. Easily done on desktop device, which usually can easily have extra drives added.

So, I have elected to have the latter feature on lappy, in lieu of using the networks used by smartphones.

It would have given me a way round the appalling constraints of our monopoly broadband supplier, but would be a very expensive option.

I occasionally do something called 'tethering', which uses my smartphone connection to link my computer to the net: it is expensive though, and the data caps are very low.

Priscus, please don't apologise, my fault not yours.

glad you sorted it out

No, Jazzy, it is indeed my error to have allowed my communication to be mired in jargon.

Had I first asked, Does anyone use their laptop on the 3g/4G mobile networks with a data only contract for broadband? - I would have stood a far greater chance of eliciting an opinion concerning the issue.

It was careless of me: perhaps tiredness was taking its toll.

Amazon emailed me to say it would be delivered on Tuesday.

So, of course, I was awakened from my Sunday lie-in at 7-00am by courier making delivery today!

Have not yet fitted it, but impressed: 250 GB SATA3 SSD storage, in less than a quarter the size of conventional 2.5 inch laptop SSD.

I did notice that when I was last in the UK there was no "Free WiFi" notices anywhere as opposed to free wifi in most places in the USA.
I had to sign up with an isp before I could get out on wifi, even macdonalds didn't have it free.
I often use "hotspot" (tethering) on my iPhone to provide Internet access on my kindle which has wifi only to the outside world.
SSD's are becoming the norm on laptops now and are obviously read/write faster, I also use a Toshiba external drive, 500gb and Tb's are cheap now, very useful for backing up work.

Is tethering an expensive option for you in US, as it is in UK?

Tethering does eat data and can be expensive, we used it on occasions when there's no wifi available but not for data guzzling video streaming and the like.

Wow! Just spotted a Samsung a 16Tb Ssd

Imagine losing all the data on a full one...

How much is it selling for?

When it becomes available to the commercial market $7000/GBP5214 ....

I'll have two!

Only in servers just now but only a matter of time