Thinkpads Forum

Title says most of it.

I have a X220i tablet, model number 429625G.

I am looking at this WWAN modem. The site is in Hungarian, but the specs are not. It lists GPRS among its capabilities.

Will this give me an in-built GPS for my laptop? If so, will it be very problematic? Will it drain my battery more or can I set it?

Yes, F5521gw module has GPS.

Unless you activate the modem with a cellular carrier, this will act like a stand-alone GPS - not like a phone with GPS. That means it will only work outdoors with clear line-of-sight to enough satellites

Well, the only thing I have to confirm is that the seller is indeed selling a F5521gw module.

richk wrote:Unless you activate the modem with a cellular carrier, this will act like a stand-alone GPS - not like a phone with GPS. That means it will only work outdoors with clear line-of-sight to enough satellites

That is still some good help, although I wonder whether it would work in a car? Also, Sony Ericsson documentation also mentions "internet assisted". Does this mean that the drivers will intelligently combine Wifi-data with the GPS signal reception to further accurately locate me?

Also, if I insert an "empty" SIM card into it (a valid, working SIM card that merely has no money on it), would it be able to use GSM data to further accurately locate me?

I don't know about an empty sim card. I have not tried inside a car, but I dout it will work. You normally need direct line-of-sight. Stand-alone GPS manufacturers, like Garmin, sell a separate antenna that mounts outside the car.

Internet assisted GPS (A-GPS) helps minimizing time required to fix your location by downloading data (ionosphere status, satellites location etc..) from internet instead of from satellites (they are broadcasting it 24/7 but transmission rate is only few bytes/second).
Your GPS will work just fine without it but will require more time for cold start (when not used for more than few days)