Novatel Merlin S620 Wireless PC Card Modem - Wireless cellular modem - plug-in module - PC Card - CDMA 2000, CDMA 2000 1X EV-DO - 2.4 Mbps

Customer Reviews:

EVDO: total hype, no substance; poor hardware [Posted on 2006-03-17]
I tried out the Novatel Merlin S620 EVDO PC Card for Sprint. In the end, I was *very* disappointed and returned the product within Sprint's 14-day trial period.

There are two aspects to consider when purchasing a product like this: the hardware itself, and the service -- i.e., the EVDO wireless data service in this case.

Hardware: The Merlin S620 PC Card is a Type II 32-bit CardBus PC Card. According to Novatel Wireless's website, this card should be compatible with most laptops running Windows 2000 or XP. (Note that only these two OS's are supported.) I tested the card in several laptops and did not have a compatibility issue at all. But the card itself felt flimsy, with the black plastic antenna housing ready to burst open any time. I was so concerned about breaking the card -- and I've owned many PC Cards in my laptop computing life so I know how to handle them -- that I returned the card a few days earlier than the 14-day trial period. So, hardware wise, it gets a D or E.

The driver and connection software that comes with the Merlin S620 card is Sprint's standard connection software package. Installation was a breeze, requiring just one restart. BTW, when you install the software, there's an option to install something called Mobilebyte Optimizer. Don't bother. This piece of junk was supposed to optimze JPEG files to make downloading webpages just a bit faster, but in actuality its settings had no effect.

The Sprint connection manager shows you the signal strength as well as whether you are using the faster EVDO (with very spotty coverage outside major city centers) or the slower, older 1xRTT (coverage also spotty outside major urban areas). You can turn the PC Card into network-ready mode so you can get connected without having to run the connection manager, but I found doing so (called "NDIS mode" in the PDF manual) consistently resulted in slower speeds, so I don't recommend it.

Spring EVDO: total hype, no substance, that was my conclusion. During the entire testing period I had full-strength signal the whole time because I never deviated from downtown Boston. I always got all six bars. Unfortunately, 95% of the time the speed was really like dial-up. No matter which site I went to, the first time it would take quite a long time to load the site, so I suspect the slow speed has something to do with the way Sprint's proxy servers work. The fact that all JPEG pictures displayed on webpages would show up heavily compressed lends support to my suspicion that Sprint's claim of "broadband speed" on EVDO is mostly false and based on compressed data rate, not raw throughput.

I used a couple online broadband testing tools found on Intel and MSN websites. Both reported anywhere between 50kbps and 800kbps (!), meaning two things: 1) the EVDO speed is not consistent and relies heavily on compression on the server's end, and 2) online speed tests are all useless turd.

The real-world experience I had with EVDO was so negative that I really think the FCC should investigate Sprint for false advertising. Maybe I'm over-critical here because I paid for everything out of my own pocket. My experience has been that people who get their companies to pay for their data services tend to have much higher satisfaction than those of us who pay with our own personal funds and who cannot claim any tax benefits.

In short, the Merlin S620 card sucks, and Sprint's EVDO sucks even more.

No reception indoors [Posted on 2006-08-24]
This card is meant for people working outside, you know, those construction workers you see hanging around with laptops (yeah right...)

You get ZERO connectivity indoors, and I live in downtown Manhattan, even if you get close to the window you still get lousy reception. So you actually have to go outside - "I'm sorry fellas, my card can't get a signal here, lets move the meeting outside". On those rare occasions when the card does pick up a signal, it takes less than 5 minutes to lose it.

I thought maybe im situated in a an area with strong interference or something, but everywhere I go, same result - go outside or get zero signal. I updated the firmware, software, tried 2 different laptops, nada. I have much better experience with my Nokia 9300 cellphone serving me as a modem than this card (which btw is a blast, but slow, that's why I bought this card).

Now to the funny part - inside the card's box there's a nice little note stating that Sprint does not guarantee quality of service or consistent reception for this card. That should have blown the whistle on this gadget but I thought maybe they're putting it there just to cover themselves in extreme cases. I guess they knew exactly what they were doing, after all, you dont find a sticker that says "May overheat or not work at all" on a GE refrigerator...

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