I've had my Panasonic Toughbook CF-M34//Verizon CDMA notebook setup for about a month now and I thought I would drop a quick post to debta the pros/cons of the system. I chose Verizon's "National Access" data plan over SprintPCS for a variety of reasons, foremost, I had first-hand experience with Sprint's CMDA data and was incredibly underwhelmed with the experience. Terrible RF, anemic throughput, and that was assuming you would get past the handdhake, which rarely was the case... Enter Verizon's CDMA plan. Purchased the Sierra AirCard 555 which is the the finest data card extant. The card is recognized as an ethernet connection and will work with Mac as well. I routinely connect at 70kbps under an excellent RF. Even in the Radio-lab at the hopsital I recieve a strong signal, amazing. My cell doesn't work for squat(Tmob) but this Verizon service is uncanny. Verizon "National Access" ... $79.99 Sierra AirCard 555 ... $299 before $100 mail in rebate In the Bay-area and SD they offer true broadband with the service, I'm told it achieve downstream of 500kbps! Panasonic CF-M34: It's a Toughbook model that is built to mil-spec standards, 700Mhz PIII ULA proc., 256MB, 20GB. The key features relate the the incredibly-bright screen. It's transflective, meaning it's readable under direct sunlight, perfect for outdoor applications, while in the car, etc. The screen also specs a passive digitzer, so the touchscreen is application-independent -- by far the most critical feature. Once you trade with a touchscreen, you'll never go back to a std. laptop config. Gotta run, PM if you're interested and I can help you out with links to hardware, etc. riskarb
Ooops, the only caveat I have is the lack of an optical spindle. The system require a bit of work to format the C-drive, if need be. You either need the obsolete cdrom drive(KXL-R21) or the floppy and docking station to boot form floppy and load the cdrom drivers. riskarb