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Comment by gates2010 | Hacker News Reader

gates2010·

there are already a few outthere that are sold with an inbuild WAN card...

ex: dell laptops sold with wan card http://www.dell.com/us/p/d/campaigns/4g-3g-mobile-broadband-...

Yes, at my workplace all the computers have the slot for a sim card. WWAN card has to be installed for it to function though. Everything from Lenovo Thinkpads to HP Elitebooks to Dell Latitudes have this.

My Thinkpad also has this: Just put in a SIM card and you are good to go. No need to be tied to any particular provider.

Edit: I did pay a bit extra for that, so I suppose my answer to the question is: "Yes, I would, and I have". But I would never buy it if it is tied to one carrier.

That is true. I admit there are some that has this option. Unfortunately not all does. As a Mac user, this is missing for me. I have had the Sprint Sierra Air Card and the Verizon Mobile Hotspot previously and would rather have something more integrated or close to it.

Indeed, when laptops used to have PCMCIA slots, and it was relatively cheap and simple to buy these in the uk, about £199. Now a dongle plus 3 months of service is £40 (which is actually cheaper than buying another 3months service, which is £45) so you have to be able to beat that almost give away price. In the I'm able to pick these up all over the place.

That to me is the challenge. I'm shocked there aren't recessed USB slots that would hide or cover the dongle. The archos and arnova brand android tablets have this and it looks good and works well, and can be used to whack in extra storage if you don't need the connectivity.

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