Review: Pantech PX-500 mobile broadband card

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	Review: Pantech PX-500 mobile broadband card	By Jennifer Hooker, Friday 19 January 2007

GALLERY

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One of the first connection cards to support Sprint's high-speed EV-DO Rev. A network, is it fast enough for your on-the-go life, or does it move at a snail's pace?

Review summary of the Pantech PX-500:

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The Pantech PX-500 brings Sprint's high-speed Rev. A EV-DO network to your laptop -- and perhaps more importantly, it offers dependable connectivity and signal strength. While the card's speed cannot compare with cable modem or higher-speed broadband connections, we were impressed with the its ability to handle our basic, but mission-critical tasks like checking e-mail, searching through Web pages and watching the occasional YouTube video with ease (and without taking a year). However, when it came to slightly more taxing jobs like downloading a song, we realized that we wouldn't want to give up our wired connection. Price: $1.

Pros: Installation was simple; signal was consistent and reliable.

Cons: Downloading songs took longer than we're used to; re-establishing connections occasionally took several attempts.

Poor

Mediocre

Good

75%
VERY GOOD

Excellent

Full review of the Pantech PX-500:

Setup - Very Good

Setting up the Pantech PX-500 Type II PCMCIA card on our Dell laptop (Latitude D420) was very easy; even the shakiest tech-neophyte could handle it. We simply installed the Sprint Connection Manager software, inserted the card and clicked the "Go" button. Once everything was installed, reconnecting was a simple matter of firing up the Connection Manager and clicking “Go” again -- nice, though we wish the app would connect automatically when you insert the card. For the most part, connections were successful on our first attempt, but there were a few occasions during our tests in New York when we had to try several times before a connection was established. The biggest headache the card gave us was in Las Vegas, covering CES 2007, when our laptop went into standby mode. Our connection was lost and could not be reestablished until we restarted the computer. Fortunately, the problem didn't reoccur on subsequent hibernations.

Signal - Very Good

Signal on the PX-500 was nice and strong and rarely dipped below three bars during our tests in New York, New Jersey and Las Vegas. Reception on the mobile broadband card was often stronger than on our Samsung SPH-M500 and our Samsung MM-A900, which both run on Sprint's EV-DO network. During our testing, we took the PX-500 with us on our commute from the North Jersey suburbs to New York, and found that traveling on the turnpike and through the Lincoln Tunnel didn't disrupt our signal; it remained consistent throughout our bus ride.

Speed - Good

While the PX-500 doesn't offer the same speed that we get from the wired broadband connection in our office, we were impressed by the speed we saw on Sprint's EV-DO Rev. A mobile broadband network. The numbers in our tests obviously varied depending on our location, but our downloading speed averaged 745 Kbps and peaked at 884 Kbps, which exceeds Sprint's claims of 800 Kbps average. Our uploading speed was about 256 Kbps on average and topped out at 562 Kbps, which is truly impressive, especially compared to the lagging upload speeds you'd expect from EV-DO rev. 0. Though these numbers don't seem all that high compared to the 24 Mbps download speed we get on our office connection over Ethernet, the Pantech PX-500 trumps all the speed we could eke out of our Palm Treo 700p, when tested simultaneously. In practical terms, this means that it took us about four minutes and 18 seconds to download a 4MB song off of iTunes (the same song took us about eight seconds over Ethernet). To the PX-500's credit, it was able to adeptly handle YouTube videos, regular e-mail checks and standard Web browsing without any hitches.

Odds and ends

While Rev. A claims potential download speeds up to 3.1 Mbps, Rev. 0 speeds are about 20% slower; the most significant difference is felt in upload speeds, where Rev. A holds a 12-fold advantage. Actual download speeds for Rev. 0 should fall within the 400-700 Kbps range, while Rev. A connections should average 800 Kbps, according to Sprint.

Sprint’s EV-DO Rev. A rollout is still in progress; the carrier claims that 60 million people are covered at this point, but only about a dozen or so cities have Rev. A service as of this writing. That said, the PX-500 is backwards compatible to the slower EV-DO Rev. 0 network.

Related phones: Sprint EV-DO phones

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Samsung SPH-M500

Score: 50% When: November 2006 Worth: $Free Carrier: Sprint

The flip phone looks like the long-lost twin of the Samsung SGH-T619, but it trumps its brother with its 3G capabilities and microSD memory expansion. Jennifer Hooker puts the M500 through its paces.

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Samsung MM-A900

When: November 2005 Worth: $100 - $350 Carrier: Sprint

Tactile and audible tactics signify Samsung's new MM-A900 and MM-A920 clamshells as they debut on Sprint's network - both setting Motorola's RAZR V3c squarely in their sights.

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Comparison

Compare the Pantech PX-500 with similar products

Who is the Pantech PX-500 for?

Business users

Price and availability

The Pantech PX-500 is available immediately from Sprint and retails for $200 or is free after a two year service agreement. Data plans range from $40/month for a limited data plan to $60/month for unlimited data.