# Doesn anyone know why EXPRESS slots instead of PCMCIA?



## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

Does anyone know why they developed Express PC card slots for laptops?

Where the PCMCIA taking up that much space?

The reason I ask this, is I just got Verizon EV-DO for my wife.
Got the PCMCIA card for free...

Her computer has a PCMCIA slot... well I thought it was one, as it held her "remote control" for the media center, and it was the hight and width of pcmica...

Well at least until you LOOK in the slot, and I find that it is an EXPRESS Slot...

Now, instead of free... I have to go and return it, and spend another $130 on the express version.

Adapters are just as much, if not more...

So anyone know of the benefits of the EXPRESS slot


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## Michael D'Angelo (Oct 21, 2006)

Earl what kind of phone does she have? She may be better off getting a phone that can be a broadband modem (EV-DO). I use a USB cable to hook my verizon blackberry up to my laptop and it works great. That way she would also have email and internet of the phone itself.


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## CoriBright (May 30, 2002)

Because they are much faster than the old PCMCIA. My Toshiba notebook has one of each slot.

http://www.expresscard.org/web/site/qa.jsp


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## AlbertZeroK (Jan 28, 2006)

BMoreRavens said:


> Earl what kind of phone does she have? She may be better off getting a phone that can be a broadband modem (EV-DO). I use a USB cable to hook my verizon blackberry up to my laptop and it works great. That way she would also have email and internet of the phone itself.


This is very true, I use my Samsung i730 and one of my techs uses his XV6700 both of us use PDANet for broadband access.

But yeah, the Express card slot is faster, I love it for hooking up SATA drives to the laptop, they are alot faster than PCMCIA slots.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

Earl- I went through the two cards issue for Express and PCMCIA. 

Typically in one location the old PCMCIA EVDO card would top out at 600-700 kbps on my laptop. I tried an express card plugin in a different laptop and it increased to close to 1Mbs. But the one by Dell that is built inside the laptop has a much larger antenna covering the screen area, This allows a better signal and therefore fewer error correction packets to be sent, resulting in near theoretical EVDO speed of 1.5Mbps. What does this mean? Better connections, faster speeds even with less than one signal bar displayed. I can watch Sling box at the same time monitor two security cameras, that's three video streams running! The verizon Express card plugin module has a very small antenna but it is still faster data path to the CPU than PCMCIA.


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## AlbertZeroK (Jan 28, 2006)

DonLandis said:


> Earl- I went through the two cards issue for Express and PCMCIA.
> 
> Typically in one location the old PCMCIA EVDO card would top out at 600-700 kbps on my laptop. I tried an express card plugin in a different laptop and it increased to close to 1Mbs. But the one by Dell that is built inside the laptop has a much larger antenna covering the screen area, This allows a better signal and therefore fewer error correction packets to be sent, resulting in near theoretical EVDO speed of 1.5Mbps. What does this mean? Better connections, faster speeds even with less than one signal bar displayed. I can watch Sling box at the same time monitor two security cameras, that's three video streams running! The verizon Express card plugin module has a very small antenna but it is still faster data path to the CPU than PCMCIA.


That is very interesting and makes alot of sense. I wonder if my D820 has a built in cellular antenna... What model latop do you have?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

AlbertZeroK said:


> That is very interesting and makes alot of sense. I wonder if my D820 has a built in cellular antenna... What model latop do you have?


It's ready to install broadband internal card - EV-DO for CDMA carriers or HSDPA for W-CDMA.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

I have the Dell XPS-1210. Last year when I bought it, Dell was bragging they had an exclusive on this Verizon daughter card technology from Verizon. At that time you had to have the Dell made to order with it built in.

Looked up the 820: Here is what they say about it-

_Stay connected online virtually anywhere.
HyperConnect

Unlike wireless cards which require Wi-Fi routers, local networks and hotspots for Internet access, cellular mobile broadband provides wireless Internet access directly through cellular phone networks at average download speeds up to 1.4 Mbps1, or about as fast as a wired broadband connection. Cellular mobile broadband is designed to connect anywhere within your carrier's broadband coverage area; generally, this means the same places you can make a cell phone call, with the same limitations.2

Select the service provider of your choice:

* AT&T - Dell Wireless 5520 built-in mini-card
* Sprint or Verizon Wireless - Dell Wireless 5720 built-in mini-card

Dell's built-in mobile broadband cards are designed to provide performance advantages over external cards, and offer the convenience of an all-in-one solution. This means no more lost or broken cards, and no more forgetting to bring the card along when you're on the road.

You can access this service by choosing an integrated mobile broadband mini-card for your new Dell notebook and activating service with AT&T, Sprint or Verizon Wireless. Once you receive your notebook, simply call Dell's toll-free wireless activation center to select a service plan and activate mobile broadband service._

Not sure if this is user installable, probably not, when I got mine it was only available at purchase since the antenna was wired throughout the laptop screen and body. BTW- Dell rep said they do the same for wifi too so it has better range and speed as well.


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## AlbertZeroK (Jan 28, 2006)

DonLandis said:


> I have the Dell XPS-1210. Last year when I bought it, Dell was bragging they had an exclusive on this Verizon daughter card technology from Verizon. At that time you had to have the Dell made to order with it built in.


Yeah, I don't see it available from dell as an accessory, but IF I remember correctly, it was either bluetooth or broadband in the laptop, not both. I opted for bluetooth (which is so nice in so many ways.)


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

AlbertZeroK said:


> Yeah, I don't see it available from dell as an accessory, but IF I remember correctly, it was either bluetooth or broadband in the laptop, not both. I opted for bluetooth (which is so nice in so many ways.)


I'm thinking about getting a Dell laptop w/WI-FI built in. When I was configuring it on
line, I didn't see bluetooth as an option. In what ways is BT better than Wi-Fi, and
does anyone know if BT is avaliable as an option on Dell's $799+ Inspiron 1421?


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## AlbertZeroK (Jan 28, 2006)

Nick said:


> I'm thinking about getting a Dell laptop w/WI-FI built in. When I was configuring it on
> line, I didn't see bluetooth as an option. In what ways is BT better than Wi-Fi, and
> does anyone know if BT is avaliable as an option on Dell's $799+ Inspiron 1421?


Think of bluetooth as wireless USB. It's not a replacement for wifi (although your can make a wireless connection over bluetooth, but it's only got a 10-20ft range.)

I have bluetooth for my bluetooth wireless mouse (no dongle to loose), cell phone (internet via cell phone) and GPS. Not to mention I have a bluetooth Wacom tablet.

Of course, I'm a geek and my laptop cost over $2400.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

BT is short range PAN and have slow speed then USB 1.0 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth).

Installing Broadband module into D820 is not a rocket sience, especially for person like A0K . And BT is not excluding option for that. Our company have the Dell NB, so the info come from first hand holding the Dx20 models.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

When I built up my XPS1210 I added every option I could. Well, I didn't add the 4Gb ram as it was very expensive at that time and could only be of value with Vista. And I only added the 120Gb hard drive. Maybe it was the XPS series but there was no option of either or for BT or Wifi. Came with both. Only option was the Verizon EVDO card internal. 

The total price of the laptop was right at $2800. It has BT 2.0, which works with stereo headphones. wifi G, and wireless Verizon EVDO. I'm hoping this laptop will last me for 4-6 years so I went with everything I could think of. My favorite feature of the 1210 is the Verizon broadband. When I'm out with a client and he claims something is wrong with his VOD service I sell him, I turn on the Dell and demonstrate how the video plays just fine on my laptop using a "cell phone data connect" It usually shuts them up and then they call up the dsl company where they buy their "high speed internet service from.


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## AlbertZeroK (Jan 28, 2006)

Yeah, I got a D820 2g ram 80g hdd (the biggest 7200RPM drive they sold at the time) plus a second swappable 80g drive (swapps with the dvd burner). A second battery (both 9 cell). Bluetooth, wifi, fingerprint reader. But the reason I got the D820, it is dockable! I goto my office, slap the laptop into the dock and that's it, no other connections to make.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

I had bad luck with the old Fuji 7200 RPM 2.5" drives. They just got too hot and failed in about 15 months. two of them. What I discovered is the latest 5400 RPM drives has enough data speed to capture video without drop frames. On the older drives, 5400 wasn't enough. I wonder if Dell is using those same brand drives I had trouble with.


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## AlbertZeroK (Jan 28, 2006)

My drive is a Hitachi. I do disk backups, so if I loose a drive it's no big deal. The laptop is for the road and I always backup my work to a flash drive of some type (my favorite being a 4G CF card with PCMCIA adapter.


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

Upon investigation, the ExpressCard technology is not just smaller and faster than the older
PCMCIA Type II plug-in card format, but there are multiple sizes and configurations per this
page at www.ExpressCard.org









*Photo reproduced with permission *

Adapters are available for less than $50 that will retrofit a PCMCIA Type II card slot for use with
the newer, smaller express cards.

Also, there are ExpressCard wireless WAN cards from several wireless data providers here

Source: www.expresscard.com


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Same thing as before: no new devices - bring new standard, raise your revenue, roll your customer money.


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