They're lagging a bit behind the competition in the dog-eat-dog world of high speed data cards, but one of Sony Ericsson's two models has a little trick up its sleeve that should still manage to win over a customer or three. The EC400 and EC400g both support the full HSPA suite -- HSDPA and HSUPA, that is, offering up to 7.2Mbps down and 2.0Mbps up -- on the 850, 1900, and 2100MHz bands, while GPRS and EDGE are supported on 850, 900, 1800, and 1900. Here's where it gets interesting, though: the EC400g adds an integrated GPS receiver, a feature occasionally seen on CDMA cards but pretty unique in the GSM camp. Both should be available in mid 2008.

Still waiting around to hop on the Rev. A highway? Although last week would've been a swell time to do so, now's not too bad either, and Verizon Wireless customers have yet another option at their fingertips. The Kyocera KPC680 ExpressCard is available now for anyone interested, and enables BroadbandAccess users to reach average download speeds of 600kbps to 1.4Mbps and upload speeds that range from 500kbps to 800kbps when situated in a Rev. A area. Additionally, this thing sports a "breakthrough" (ahem) antenna design that "moves the antenna away from the device as it is opened, providing greater sensitivity, dual external antenna ports for signal flexibility and a compact form factor." Get yours now for just $49.99 after a mail-in rebate and throwing your John Hancock on a two-year agreement.

Although Sierra Wireless launched its AirCard 597E EV-DO Rev. A ExpressCard last summer, the device is finally making the leap to Sprint-Nextel's Mobile Broadband Network. Aside from the aesthetics, just a few alterations have been made under the hood, but we know you're most interested in how it allows Sprint customers to hop on the 3G highway with their ExpressCard-equipped lappie (or desktop). Of note, this rendition does manage to add assisted GPS (A-GPS) capabilities which "plots your current location on a map and then searches for nearby points of interest," a "high-performance (albeit beefy) integrated antenna to improve signal capture and data speed," and the new 65-nanometer MSM6800A chipset from QUALCOMM. Reportedly, Sprint will be demonstrating the card at this week's Interop expo in Las Vegas, and while pricing details were left out for the moment, the card should slip into retail channels next month.

At long last, the wait for Sierra Wireless' AirCard 875U on AT&T is over, as the USB WWAN modem has just popped up on the firm's Premier webstore. Unsurprisingly, this 2.2-ounce portal to the world connects via USB 2.0 and provides interoperable service between BroadbandConnect and EDGE networks. You'll find all the quad-band GSM and tri-band HSDPA love you could ever need here, and while Windows 2000, XP, and Vista users are all taken care of, it looks like the OS X crowd will have to sit this one out for awhile. So if you're interested in hopping on the 3.6Mbps mobile internet highway, head on over to AT&T Premier with $379.99 (or $149.99 with a new two-year contract) ready to hand over.

[Thanks, Jake]

It's refreshing to see high tech wizardry with Apple flavor hitting the shelves; if you have a hankering for travel and need fast connectivity no matter where you go, the GlobeTrotter Express 7.2 Ready has you covered. This Mac-compatible ExpressCard will bring triple band HSDPA / UMTS -- up to 7.2 Mbps -- and quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE to your Book, and thanks to the "Zero-CD" feature, drivers and software are auto-magically installed from the card's memory on first use (no worries, Windows users, you are covered here as well). The simple "launch2net" software provides instant detection and configuration of 300 network providers around the globe, meaning less time spent fiddling with APNs and passwords and more time online -- we know your provider's support team and accounting depts. will love this feature. The Nova Media site shows this as pre-order right now for roughly $400 US, but it should start shipping in early May.

[Via Macworld]

Not content with simply making some of the best smartphones on the planet, Taiwanese powerhouse HTC is now looking to get into the data card game, with the company prepping a new HSDPA card through its BandRich subsidiary. The C100, as it's known, will offer download speeds up to 7.2Mbps where available, and is said to be just the first of many mobile modems BandRich is planning. DigiTimes is reporting that the C100 will be priced north of €200 ($269), so although we don't yet know when/where these are gonna drop, it looks like you'll have to part with at least a few C notes if this model lands in your neck of the woods.

[Via jkOTR]

We heard tell of this little guy last month when Apple let the model number out amongst newly supported WWAN products -- so what's this Verizon V740 card got going for it other than explicit Mac support? Well, EV-DO Rev. A, of course. Built by Novatel, the V740 is here to replace the V640 in ExpressCard/34 duties for Verizon, with beefier bandwidth and a dearth of aesthetic changes. The card will be hitting retail on March 30th, and looks to be going for $110 with two years of service -- cheaper than Sprint's EX720 offering, but Verizon will get you in the end with those hefty data charges.

The world just became a little less of a cold, dead, meaningless (or at least data-less) wasteland for Sprint customers rocking ExpressCard slots (of either the /34 or /54 variety) thanks to the official release of Novatel's Merlin EX720 modem on Sprint's website. Riding atop Sprint's glorious EV-DO Rev. A airwaves, the EX720 should deliver up to 1.4Mbps down and 500kbps up to virtually any ExpressCard-equipped device that needs it (MacBook Pros included), provided that the requisite $179.99 (after contract and rebates) has been forwarded to the appropriate bean counters over at your network. We can almost picture Cingular and T-Mobile folks seething -- for what it's worth, we feel your pain -- but hey, Sprintheads, go get your WWAN on.

If AT&T plans to roll deep with 7.2Mbps HSDPA this year, we reckon they need some equipment on store shelves, so FCC approval of Option's GlobeTrotter Express 7.2 certainly bodes well. Besides tri-band UMTS / HSDPA and quadband GPRS / EDGE, the card features a nifty zero-CD installation feature that copies drivers directly from the card itself. No word on release -- or whether AT&T will even carry it, for that matter -- but we're guessing we can find a few MacBook Pro users out there who are about ready to raid the FCC's offices and swipe this thing today.

Nipping at the heels of Novatel's similarly-styled XU870, Belgium's Option Wireless Technology has announced its GlobeTrotter EXPRESS 7.2. As the name implies, the ExpressCard promises 7.2Mbps downstream on the wings of your carrier's HSDPA airwaves -- if said carrier supports such blazingly fast speeds, of course, and as of right now 3.6 is as good as it gets. For what it's worth, the XU870 currently tops out at 3.6Mbps with a software upgrade to 7.2 slated for down the road, so the GlobeTrotter takes the strictly-theoretical speed crown in the meantime (and if the GlobeTrotter were actually shipping right now like the XU870 is, that'd be even cooler). Thanks to a nifty little feature Option calls "Zero CD," drivers for the card are embedded in the card itself, meaning that no separate driver installation is necessary when you shove this puppy into your lappie of choice. No word on availability yet, but with support for triband HSDPA and quadband EDGE, we wouldn't be surprised to see this one take the whole world by storm.

[Via 3G.co.uk, thanks Bram]

They laughed when you bought that fancy new laptop with an ExpressCard slot, they scoffed when you "gave into the man" and signed up for Cingular, and they've been waving that PCMCIA EV-DO card of theirs in your face for what seems like an eternity now, but your vindication is finally nigh! Novatel just announced that their Merlin XU870 HSDPA ExpressCard, the first of its kind, is now shipping. The card can manage HSDPA, UMTS, EDGE and GPRS, both here and abroad, and while it currently tops off at 3.6Mbps, a forthcoming software update will bump that to 7.2Mbps once the carriers are ready. Apparently this thing has already started to ship to leading carriers in Germany, Austria, Spain, Portugal and New Zealand, and while we're not exactly sure when you'll be able to grab this thing off the shelf of your neighborhood electronics shop in the States, the XU870 is official, legit, "shipping," and all that good stuff, so we're going have a party all the same. Who's bringing the chips?

[Via laptoping]

Wouldn't you know it, we just pick our damn selves up a Verizon V640 EV-DO ExpressCard device and Sierra goes and announces the next gen Rev. A version we are gonna just have to plunk down for. Unfortunately Sierra didn't release a photo of their AirCard 597E (so what else is new -- pictured is their current AirCard 595), but there's not a whole lot to be seen; it's all in the specs. The interesting thing will be the ExpressCard34-to-PCMCIA adapter that should come bundled with the device, but we're less worried about how to get it into our boxes and more concerned with getting that full 3.1Mbps / 1.8Mbps of throughput while we're out and about.

[Via Slashgear]

So we've been a little lax about writing us up the Verizon V640 EV-DO ExpressCard we've had sitting around here for a couple of weeks, but there's not really a whole lot to say -- the thing is small, solid, and fast as the dickens. Like, seriously, we mean fast. We didn't have an ExpressCard equipped PC machine handy, but if your Mac has the latest OS X updates you should already have the drivers installed to make this thing hum, so installation is literally as simple as inserting, clicking ok to install the device, and then hitting connect. Obviously the first thing we did was test the bandwidth, and we were pleasantly surprised after spending as much time with the Kyocera KPC650 as we have in the past few months: for starters we got about 2mbps down, and 120kbps up. Click on for a ton of pictures of the ritual unboxing, it's a joy.