pocketGEAR Australia SDIO Wireless LAN Card

Gadgeteer Hands On Review by Judie Hughes

January 06, 2006

If you happen to be using a Pocket PC that doesn't have built-in WiFi, there is no need to settle for a bulky card which sticks awkwardly from the SD slot. Instead, take a look at the pocketGEAR Australia SDIO Wireless LAN Card, touted as being the "World's Smallest WiFi Card".

Included in the package is the 1.5" tall card, the setup CD and a case for the card.

The pocketGEAR card supports 802.11b WiFi communications up to 11Mbps, and according to the manual will work from an average distance of up to 400 meters (437 yards) outside, or up to 100 meters (109 yards) inside. The card draws all power directly from the device in which it is inserted, and it use an operating voltage of PA: 3.0 to 3.6V, TRX: 2.7V. Average Operation is 185mA while viewing the web, 60mA in receive mode and 116mA for 15dbM Pout in transmit mode. The card supports DCF/PCF and uses a fully integrated 2.4 GHz band direct conversion transceiver.

Setup involves running the CD on the desktop to install the PocketGear SDIO WLAN Card program to the Pocket PC. The card supports Pocket PC 2003 and Linux devices which have SDIO enabled slots.

After the utility program has been installed to the device, the card just needs to be inserted in an available SDIO slot. Once in place, the card protrudes just 0.25" from the PDA, and a New Network bubble immediately pops up on the screen. Hitting connect enables WiFi, and just like that - the PDA is connected.

For this review I am using the iPAQ 1945, a smaller PDA that ordinarily only has Bluetooth and Infrared wireless capabilities...but is now fully WiFi enabled.

Clicking on the dual arrows icon displays the WiFi strength in bars, but the built-in utility has a better way to gauge actual strength. I'll talk about that in a moment.

As an added convenience, a WiFi Signal monitor is placed in the Today screen's system tray, which shows the signal's strength...

...clicking on the icon will allow the user to turn the radio On or Off.

A small green LED flickers on the back side of the card, showing that the card is working.

Hey, there is our homepage - wirelessly brought up on this PDA for the first time ever.

This shot shows the WLAN program which has been installed onto the Pocket PC. Clicking it reveals the Status screen of the WLAN Utility.

This Status screen shows all of the information having to do with the card at any given moment. It should be evident that when this photo was taken, it was on my desk, not far from the wireless router.

The WiFi card has a more than adequate reach, although saying that it's range is 109 yards indoors is a bit misleading. My entire house is about 77 feet long, and granted there are walls and doors separating various rooms, but with my router placed roughly in the middle of the house where the office is, my 100% signal drops to 5% at the front door and 7% at the back. However, the signal is still quite usable and certainly better than other cards I have attempted to use in the past.

Here are shots of the other screens accessible through the WLAN Utility, including Statistics...

Radio...

...and the About tab.

Because the pocketGEAR WiFi card is so short, I don't have the same worries of knocking it out or breaking it somehow, that I would have had with a more protruding card. The only other feature that I would like to have seen for this product would be at least 128MB of memory built-in somehow...but I am sure that adding memory would mean adding length to the card. As long as the user does not need to access programs or files that might otherwise have been stored on an external memory card, It would be quite possible to leave the card installed all of the time.

The WiFi card is a great way to extend the usability of an aging PDA. For instance, even though this iPAQ is older, it still works very well and I foresee it lasting for many more years. With the addition of a WiFi card, this "old dog" has been taught a "new trick".

149.95 AUD, or approximately $113.00 USD, although their online retailers seem to be discounting the price quite a bit from MSRP.