[Alexander]

Hi, I live in Moscow and we have quite a few people here who are Pocket PC fans (myself included). GPRS connectivity is offered by all major mobile communication providers and coverage is quite good.

While the emerging trend on the Pocket PC market is two-in-one devices like the upcoming iPaq 5600 communicator (phone/Pocket PC) I have a

QUESTION: Can I get connected to Internet using the new NEC Versa LitePad using the upcoming iPaq 5600?

The idea is to get rid of available 1) mobile phone with built-in GPRS modem and Blue Tooth connectivity 2) iPaq 3660 with a CF Blue Tooth card 3) a notebook with a Blue Tooth module

and replace the whole lot with just:

1)light and elegant NEC LitePad and 2) powerful iPaq communicator.

What I want to have is a communicator always in my pocket on in stand-by mode (both for voice and data, tasks and telehone numbers lookup) and a light yet powerful tablet computer on hand to work on “more comlex” assignments like word doc editing, excell, long emails etc.

Available specs of the two machines (as far as communication is concerned) are:

NEC LitePad
Wireless LAN (802.11b/11a combo) (switch on face of unit to enable/disable)
Mini-PCI Wired LAN (100BASE-T) on M/B

HP iPaq 5600
Pocket PC Phone Edition-based unit with built-in GSM/GPRS with onboard Bluetooth AND 802.11b WLAN capabilities.

Again, can I marry them to become really mobile?

Please help with advice/thoughts.

[scoble]

That's a really interesting question. I honestly don't know.

Can you hook a standard laptop up to the iPAQ and use the iPAQ's wireless features? If yes, how does a standard laptop hook up to it?

If no, well, then, you could certainly buy a Sierra Wireless card http://www.sierrawireless.com and use that in the NEC Versa LitePad's Compact Flash slot. That'll run you about $300 (plus another $100 a month for Sprint's unlimited wireless coverage). That's probably how I'll get my NEC Tablet on the Internet for now.

[kregar]

Actually, I don't think Sprint is active in Moscow[8D]

Alexander,

You can hookup your phone via cable, or purchase a bluetooth based phone and a bluetooth card for your tablet. Either way will work great.

I use a Ericsson T29 and T68i with a bluetooth card installed in my Dell laptop. GPRS service works as advertised. It works fine.


Hope that helps,

Kreg

[Alexander]

Robert

I can hook a standard laptop to the iPaq via a BT card installed on both units (both are CF type). So, logically this would work with LitePad+iPaq5600 communicator pair both in BT and WLAN setup. No, we dont have Sprint's coverage here in Moscow.

Thanks for the reply.


quote:Originally posted by scoble

That's a really interesting question. I honestly don't know.

Can you hook a standard laptop up to the iPAQ and use the iPAQ's wireless features? If yes, how does a standard laptop hook up to it?

If no, well, then, you could certainly buy a Sierra Wireless card http://www.sierrawireless.com and use that in the NEC Versa LitePad's Compact Flash slot. That'll run you about $300 (plus another $100 a month for Sprint's unlimited wireless coverage). That's probably how I'll get my NEC Tablet on the Internet for now.

[Alexander]

Kreg,

I understand. But again my goalis to reduce the number of gadgets (and their total weight) to the minimum. So, I have decided to buy a two-in-one iPaq 5600 communicator (once it is released)and NEC LitePad a bit later. Currently I use iPaq 3660 with Eric 39 plus a notebook which is cumbersome.


quote:Originally posted by kregar

Actually, I don't think Sprint is active in Moscow[8D]

Alexander,

You can hookup your phone via cable, or purchase a bluetooth based phone and a bluetooth card for your tablet. Either way will work great.

I use a Ericsson T29 and T68i with a bluetooth card installed in my Dell laptop. GPRS service works as advertised. It works fine.


Hope that helps,

Kreg

[kregar]

Alexander,

Sorry. I forgot about the iPaq all in one. It is not available here in the US. I meant to sya I use a T39, not T29.

Goodluck with your decision!

Kreg

[GF]

Actually, you can consider to buy a CF GSM card. Here is the link of the product from Audiovox:

http://www.audiovox.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ExecMacro/product_mainpage.d2w/input?prrfnbr=1472612

Hope it help.

GF