KEY POINTS:
Here's a problem which has been deeply frustrating for me - I managed to get a good deal on a Hewlett Packard laptop last year, so decided to stump up for the Compaq Presario V3000.
This was despite the fact it only had an ExpressCard slot for adding things
like mobile data and Wi-fi cards, rather than the older more popular CardBus PC Card format.
Here's a comparison of the two technologies, but essentially, ExpressCard is a smaller, more compact format that has several advantages to its predecessor.
It has faster bandwidth throughput than PC Cards - 2.5Gbit/s compared to 1066Mbit/s. It is also lower-power, so won't drain your laptop battery as quickly.
The ExpressCard alliance also claims they are cheaper to make, which stands to reason - there are less materials involved.
The problem is that laptop vendors like Dell and HP started selling laptops with ExpressCard slots and no backwards compatibility with PC Cards long before a decent number of ExpressCards were on the market.
Buying the V3000 rendered my external Wi-fi and TV tuner cards obsolete.
I knew mobile data cards wouldn't prove an issue because USB-based modems like Vodafone's Vodem and Telecom's EV-DO USB modem are readily available.
Now, finally, an EV-DO ExpressCard allowing access to Telecom's high-speed mobile data network has become available. That will be a good alternative to the USM version as it is more compact and suitable for travelling.
It's good that the card, which will retail for $429 plus GST has arrived.
But what of other devices? The ExpressCard alliance lists numerous cards on sale or soon to hit the market, but precious few are yet available from electronics retailers.
So a word of caution when you upgrade your laptop - either go for one with a PC Card-ExpressCard dual slot or make sure you can access an ExpressCard to replace the PC Card you were previously using.
Telecom's general manager of business solutions Greg McAlister gave me the rundown on the ExpressCard last week, but he also took the opportunity to argue against the case I made in a previous blog that Telecom's new roaming zones aren't very competitive compared to those of Vodafone's.
McAlister points out that yes, on a "point to point" comparison, Vodafone appears cheaper but that's as long as you stay on a Vodafone or Vodafone partner network in the country you are visiting.
Telecom negotiated a deal for roaming with Hong Kong roaming wholesale provider CSL, which has negotiated multiple carrier deals in 180 countries.
That means pretty much wherever you are in those countries and whatever carrier you're connecting via, you'll pay the advertised per-minute rate.
McAlister makes a fair point - people going beyond the main cities of countries will enjoy that certainty. But the CSL rates overall are still on the high side.
"We're a price taker in this game," McAlister explains. "It really is the global [carriers] that set interconnect rates."
He added that the poor state of data roaming for Telecom customers will be improved by the end of the year through the addition of data roaming to the CSL deal.
At the moment, Telecom customers can only data roam to Australia. He said Telecom's device team was overseas looking at what dual-mode GSM-CDMA smartphone devices to acquire to boost the Worldmode range that will become crucial to Telecom's roaming business when Telstra's CDMA network is shut down.
