X61s expresscard?

[gowei]

Hello,

I’m thinking about buying mobile internet modem with HSDPA technology. The problem is that all new modem models are express card. My X61s was shipped with PCMCIA controller (In device manager it’s Ricoh R/RL/5C476(II)). I red somewhere that it might be compatible with express card through some adapter. Is that true? How does this adapter looks like? Is it expensive?

My other question about this modem is about power consumption. Is HSDPA consuming more or less power then Wi-Fi?

[gdavis]

I asked some questions about this regarding the x61tablet. There were some helpful answers that ended up in this thread about an adapter that is either available to comes with some units to allow an express card device to go into the PCMCIA slot.

I'm not sure if that applies as well to the x61s though.

here is the thread that gives more info about it (at least for the tablet).

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... highlight=

About the HSDPA device, I would assume that it uses more power than a wifi device, simply due to the distance that the signal has to travel to a cell tower is much farther than to a wifi antenna in a room nearby. But I could be mistaken about that....

[mfbernstein]

Another possibility is a USB dongle like the Huawei E220. Not quite as elegant, but no need for an adapter.

At least in mobile phones, HSDPA takes considerably more power than WiFi, and I presume the same will be true for notebooks.