Good Laptop Gains Little From Built-In Cell Receiver

WiFi wireless networking has spoiled a lot of laptop users. The experience of getting instant broadband Internet access from the nearest wireless hot spot has programmed many people into thinking that they need only flip open a laptop to jump online -- and usually for free.

But in the overwhelming majority of the world, WiFi isn't there for the taking, even if you're willing to pay for it.

There's always dial-up access, but that means tying the laptop down to a fixed point and putting up with slow connect times and slow downloads.

Cellular data services, meanwhile, didn't acquire any sort of acceptable speed until a few years back and, with one exception, still trail far behind cable and DSL broadband. Their costs vary between excessive and extortionate. Finally, they demand that you pay extra for a special receiver card that will plug up your laptop's PC Card slot (if it has one) and require that you install its own peculiar software drivers.

Sony's new Vaio T350 laptop addresses one of those problems. It doesn't make wireless data access any faster or cheaper than before. But in addition to its WiFi capability, it includes a built-in cellular data receiver that works out of the box and leaves the PC Card slot open for other uses.

This seems like something that should have been done a long time ago. But there are some good reasons not to build in a cellular data receiver just yet, as the T350 winds up demonstrating.

As with any other type of cell phone, the T350's receiver can talk to only one type of wireless network, GSM (Global System for Mobile communication), and is set up to work with only one wireless carrier, Cingular.

Cingular's data service runs on a version of GSM called EDGE (enhanced data rates for GSM evolution), with advertised download speeds ranging from 70 to 135 kilobits per second (kbps).

Logging onto Cingular's EDGE service requires simply selecting that option from Sony's jargon-laden wireless-networking software, then waiting for the laptop to connect. A 30-day free trial is included in both available service plans: $50 for 50 megabytes of data use or $80 for unlimited use.

With a clear signal -- four or five bars of indicated strength, out of five total -- things proceeded pleasantly. When the test Vaio T350P, a pre-production unit lent by Sony, had just booted up, it took about 30 seconds to detect the wireless receiver and log on. Afterward (except for one time when the laptop couldn't find the receiver after waking up from standby mode), connections took less than 10 seconds.

As long as the signal remained strong enough, connection speeds averaged just below twice those of dial-up: around 90 kbps for downloads and 50 kbps for uploads.

That's awful compared with WiFi but far superior to the alternative of dial-up or nothing at all. Looking up information online required minimal patience, and I could download reasonably small files (for instance, updates to the antivirus software) without aggravation.