Novatel V640 vs. Kyocera KPC650 |
| Thursday, 03 August 2006 | |
Novatel V640 ExpressCard vs. Kyocera KPC650 PCMCIA Card 
The Kyocera KPC650 has been the performance leader for the last year. According to our tests and those at PC Magazine. Now, we have the first ExpressCard available from Novatel, and in this article we compare the features and performance between the best performing PCMCIA EVDO card against the first ExpressCard EVDO card. The Novatel V640 (development name was Novatel XV620), is a 34 mm format (see What is an Express Card Module?). In our tests, we will be testing the the Kyocera in a PowerBook G4 and the Novatel V640 in a MacBook Pro. For comparison, we will also test Dells version of the V640 card and also benchmark the ExpressCard while running under Windows XP. Our Tests We are in a fairly strong Verizon EVDO coverage area. This test is just a performance comparison between two different cards. We are NOT using any sort of booster antenna or EVDO Amplifier, we are using just the standard built-in antenna. We connect to DSLReports for out benchmark results. Novatel V640 Benchmarks  We inserted the Novatel V640 into our MacBook Pro and we see a signal indicator of 2 bars and a signal strength of -88dBm (we are using native 10.4.7 support for this) We run the benchmark 3 times and the fastest speed is 639 down/118 up. Not bad for a 2 bar coverage area.  KPC650 Benchmarks  Next, we shutdown the MacBook Pro and remove it, and place the PowerBook G4 in exactly the same place and insert the Kyocera KPC650. For our test, we are running VZAccess Manager 2.3 (the latest recommended version). We immediately get 4 bars and our signal drops to -83dBm. From the signal indicator, we are getting MUCH better signal than the MacBook Pro / Novatel V640. We run the test 3 times and the highest speed we get is 634Kbps download / 116Kbps upload. Another night we perform the same tests and the KPC650 [b]slightly[/b] outperforms the Novatel V640 (5-10Kbps). Our Conclusions During out testing, the Novatel V640 gives similar performance compared to the Kyocera KPC650. If you have a laptop with an ExpressCard/34 or ExpressCard/54 slot, you will be VERY happy with the form factor, price and performance of the Novatel V640. ExpressCard Adapter - Converting ExpressCard to PCMCIA One of the coolest add-ons for the Novatel V640, is an adapter that converts the ExpressCard to a PCMCIA card via an "ExpressCard Adapter". This adapter will sell for $29.99 and it is not yet available. This adapter will NOT work in all laptops (or Routers). See Novatel V640 ExpressCard Adapter Compatibility Cardbus vs. Cardbay for more information. Related Articles:
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