What is the best WIFI card for this device?

[Guest thud]

I have an M500 arriving as a free upgrade from Orange on Monday. I would like to use wifi on the handset and so need to choose a card. I dont want one that sticks out by 2 inches cos I know I will break it!

I have seen this one on expansys and the Ebuyer one. I dont mind the difference in price, £50/60 aint a lot to add wifi compactly to this handset IMO. Question is are these two the best small wifi options for this handset?

Many thanks for any comments / feedback.

Cheers

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/in...oduct_uid=89714

http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=121110

[Guest Vector]

I've got the ebuyer card, and it works great :)

If i was you i would save the 40 odd quid and get the ebuyer one, as i have had nor problems at all with it and it was very easy to set up :D

[Guest thud]

Thanks, I would do as you say but I am put off by the silly dangling red antennae. The other card doesnt have this but is just as small from the best I can tell?

quote=Vector,Jul 22 2005, 12:15]

If i was you i would save the 40 odd quid and get the ebuyer

[Guest dan13l]

I don't think there's an antenna - isn't that a stick of dynamite superimposed on the image? A kind of "hot item" type graphic?

I'm seriously tempted myself - the only other option is one with some storage built in...

Oh, just noticed : "Small external antenna reduces the card size" so I guess that IS an antenna....hmm...

Vector - could you post a decent pic, so we can see if its really as silly as it sounds?

Edited July 22, 2005 by dan13l

[Guest thud]

Surely someone has this ebuyer card and can tell us if it has a dangling red antennae or not please!

Thanks.

[Guest bill door]

There is no dangling antenna, the card protrudes a few mm from the top.

[Guest duncan888]

lol, that is not an antenna!! I've got one of these cards and its only 5mm longer than a ordinary SD card.

[Guest stevepuri]

I have this Ebuyer card for my M500 and it works great.

Currently, it's actually supposed to be the world's smallest SDIO wi-fi card.

I can confirm the "silly dangling red" thing is NOT the antennae !

It does stick out by a couple MMs, but it's okay - besides, you get a cool blue LED the flickers.

[Guest MitchellO]

I wish I had one of the small SD WiFis. I have a Sandisk, and it sticks out almost an inch!!

[Guest bertie_uk]

For those interested in the eBuyer wireless SD card, here is a photo of it in my JAM.

Hope this helps some making a decision 8)

Bertie

Edited July 27, 2005 by bertie_uk

[Guest MitchellO]

Looks good. Nice and unobtrusive!!

[Guest Flopsy]

Ordered one of these, arrived this morning and I went from never having used a Wi-Fi network in my life to a successful connection in about 30 minutes - which included setting up my router to have a wireless connection and having to change radio channel on it as it wasn't working on channel 11 by default.

So it must be quite a good piece of kit :)

I didn't have to do any of the faffing referred to in the eBuyer review with setting the connection to Work - when I'd found the connection in the network scan, I then edited all the settings in the Connections Settings control panel for my network to have the right WEP key, and set it to connect to The Internet like my GPRS setup.

And it all just worked, and I've since checked my GPRS is still working, and it is.

Miracles never cease.

One question that's nagging me, and I'm off to look on the Interweb to see if I can find the answer anyway - when I set up my WEP encryption on my router, I supplied a pass key which generated four encryption keys. Yet I don't seem to use that pass key anywhere on my M500 - I just had to copy over one of those encryption keys by hand.

So, did the pass key just provide a convenient way of generating WEP keys? And does that mean that some client drivers on some WiFI kit allows you to generate the same keys using that key, and hence not have to remember the hex strings?

[Guest MitchellO]

Its great that it just works with both the WiFi and GPRS without having to muck around. Some people had problems with it, I'm not one of them thankfully :)

For those getting a Sandisk or similar SD WiFi, be warned of how much it sticks out:

It works good, but its sooo long and would be easy to break.

[Guest MitchellO]

Sorry, double post.

Edited July 30, 2005 by MitchellO

[Guest musicvan]

Its great that it just works with both the WiFi and GPRS without having to muck around. Some people had problems with it, I'm not one of them thankfully :)

For those getting a Sandisk or similar SD WiFi, be warned of how much it sticks out:

It works good, but its sooo long and would be easy to break.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Wow, thats big. Glad I went for the ebuyer one even if it does stick out by several mm. For 18.00 it shows how cheap, and small, these things would be to build into the unit from scratch (with a lot of cost in the actual SDIO packaging). I have not used the safe com card for long so does anybody have any idea how this impacts battery life on an M500? Also I used the drivers from the CD that shipped with the card but the reviewer on ebuyer mentioned using the drivers from the safe com site as these would be up to date, has any body noticed a difference?

EDIT: There is a more detailed manual for the safe com wlan sdio card on the safe com site, I only got the quick guide in the box. The drivers also appear to be the same as those on the CD:

http://safecom.cn/code/sub/manuals.asp?prdid=146&subcatid=2

Edited July 30, 2005 by musicvan

[Guest MitchellO]

Yeah, its rather huge. I've thought about trying to get one of the tiny ones, but I am planning to upgrade to either a Wizard or Universal in a few months, so it would be a waste. The card works fine, it just sticks out!

[Guest dutchphoto]

Its great that it just works with both the WiFi and GPRS without having to muck around. Some people had problems with it, I'm not one of them thankfully :)

For those getting a Sandisk or similar SD WiFi, be warned of how much it sticks out:

It works good, but its sooo long and would be easy to break.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What other option is there if you have only one SD-slot? I think I am going for a Sandisk if I can find one for a reasonable price.

dutchphoto

[Guest Webreaper]

Is the Spectec smaller than the eBuyer card? They claim the smallest in the world, but has anyone measured both? :)

[Guest fUNKUS]

Whatever you do DO NOT BUY A SPECTEC CARD!!!! They aren't compatible....anyone want to buy one? hehe!

EDIT: I have to retract this because it turns out my mobile provider disbled the card in their rom, it may well work. Sorry !

if you want to know why:

Spectec card

Also could you guys tell me what OS you are running the ebuyer card on cos it doesn't say it supports Windows Mobile 5, and i refuse to buy a fourth wifi card until i know it will work!

fUNKUS

Edited March 6, 2006 by fUNKUS

[Guest mattbrown]

The spectec one works fine in my mda compact, download also Hitchhiker program - superb for finding wifi hotspots and autoconnecting to them, my whole street is one big hotspot, no need for me to buy the internet

[Guest jimbo39]

I have an M500 arriving as a free upgrade from Orange on Monday. I would like to use wifi on the handset and so need to choose a card. I dont want one that sticks out by 2 inches cos I know I will break it!

I have seen this one on expansys and the Ebuyer one. I dont mind the difference in price, £50/60 aint a lot to add wifi compactly to this handset IMO.  Question is are these two the best small wifi options for this handset?

Many thanks for any  comments / feedback.

Cheers

I use a Spectec WiFi card, it is very small, and it only sticks out about 5mm

Connects automatically to any network it finds. I use at home to connect via my Voyager 2100 and to my Company wireless network.

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/in...oduct_uid=89714

http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=121110

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Guest Echilon]

I'd advise against a WiFi SDIO card. I had an eBuyer one for my JAM, and battery life would be reduced to an hour when it was active. SDIO cards seem to drain power alot quicker than onboard wifi.

[Guest funkychicken9000]

Anyone know if these work in the MDA Compact II?

[Guest MitchellO]

I'd advise against a WiFi SDIO card. I had an eBuyer one for my JAM, and battery life would be reduced to an hour when it was active. SDIO cards seem to drain power alot quicker than onboard wifi.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I never found that. I got at least 2hrs using a Sandisk SDIO WiFi card for my XDA II Mini (same as JAM, s100, MDA Compact). It was great! I typically got longer than that too. That is with the screen on 75%.

[Guest micaels]

I get around two hours two with the spectec card on my jam. Works great have not experienced any problems at all ;)