Review

You have to love two for one specials, especially when it's wi-fi and memory Storage all in the same tiny package.  This July SanDisk Corporation brings to the market the first ever SD Wi-Fi card that combines 256MB of flash memory Storage in the same card.  SanDisk gave us the chance to play with this new SD card before it hits the market sometime at the beginning of next month.  Using my iPaq 2215, which comes with integrated Bluetooth but no integrated Wi-Fi, I put this card to the test.

First lets look at the specs on the 256MB + Wi-Fi card from SanDisk:

• Wi-Fi uses 802.11b standard and uses Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum Wireless LAN technology for up to 11 Megabits/second bandwidth at distances of up to 800 ft.
• Wi-Fi includes security solutions WEP, 802.1x, PSK and WPA
• Works with Pocket PC 2002, Pocket PC 2003 and Windows Mobile 2003 operating systems.  Sorry Palm OS users!
• Suggested retail price of $129.99

The first step in getting everything setup with your new SanDisk Wi-Fi/256MB combo card is to not put it in the device.  Huh?  Well, you have to install the drivers to your Pocket PC first of course.  The setup is easy, just pop in the provided CD with the driver installation software for your wi-fi card, making sure to choose the right operating system (mine happens to be Windows Mobile 2003) and follow the instructions, which mostly includes clicking the "Next" button in the setup wizard and making sure your Pocket PC is connected via its cradle or synch cable.

The installation setup screen

After setup is complete you should pop the card into the SD slot on your Pocket PC device.  According to the instructions in user manual on the CD I should have instantly seen an icon pop-up alerting me to available networks.  However, after popping in the card the green-light indicating power was flowing to the card and it was operating properly, didn't want to illuminate.  So, I went to the Settings and saw that a SanDisk Wi-Fi application had indeed been installed and tried clicking it, but simply received the message "Cannot detect Network Card" or something along those lines.  I scratched my head, and resorted to a soft-reset of the iPaq 2215 to see if this helped things.  When in doubt, reset right?  Luckily this got things sorted, so a word to the wise, after installing the drivers and application for operating the wi-fi card do a soft reset on your device, and then plop the card into its slot.

The driver install program for the 256MB/Wi-Fi SanDisk card will place an utility in your Settings > Connections tab

Once the wi-fi card green light was blinking, meaning power was on and it was happy, I was able to detect networks and connect.  Below is a screenshot from the SanDisk application that allows you to choose a network from the surroundings. 

Unfortunately I was getting pretty poor reception from any of the networks in my apartment building, and had some troubles connecting from a distance of over 600 ft.  The "AP Browser" area of the application was telling me all my available networks were below 50% signal reception, and the card really seemed to want a reception of over 50% to work properly.  If it wasn't over 50%, the card would just kind of try to associate for 3 seconds, and then quit and jump to another network and try and associate to this.  Which lead to a fun time of just watching the card try to find a network it was happy with, but since it disliked anything under 50% it was just a vicious cycle.  However, once I moved to within 600 ft. of any wireless router the card would connect without problem and stick with that wireless LAN.  At this point surfing the web, downloading email, using MSN Messenger or any of those other wonderful things that can be used via an internet connection was open to me with the combined usage of my Pocket PC and SanDisk wi-fi card.  The performance was great, downloads were fast and all the security solutions a consumer or even enterprise would want supported were available (WEP, PSK, WPA to name a few)

iPaq 2215 with the SanDisk Wi-Fi + 256MB SD card in place

I haven't talked about the memory aspect of this card yet.  But then again, what is there to talk about?  256MB isn't a huge amount of memory, but it is certainly appreciated and the fact that content can be downloaded directly to the card without having to first save to internal memory of the device is a very nice feature.  The other no-brainer advantage to having combined SD memory and Wi-Fi is that for $60.99 you can buy a 256MB SD Card from Amazon and for $78.98 from eCost.com or just spend $129.99 to get the combined 256MB storage + Wi-Fi instead of $140 for two seperate cards and get everything in an all in one package that saves space and hassle!

I would recommend this card as a great solution for adding Wi-Fi to your SD slot equipped Pocket PC device.  Everyone needs extra storage, or if you don't think you do, once you have it you'll find ways to use it, so why not kill two birds with one stone and get this instead of two cards?  The performance on the wi-fi is great.  Aside from a couple of hiccups in the setup process and initially getting the wireless going I had no problems using the card for accessing the internet via my iPaq 2215.  I do recommend being within 600 ft. of a wireless router to get good throughput using the card, but that's a fairly generous distance.  If it's not far enough for you, consider getting a wireless bridge that boosts the wireless signal to the area of the house or office you intend to use your PDA equipped with a SanDisk Wi-Fi + 256 MB card.

Overall, thumbs up to SanDisk for another innovative product and bringing more utility to the handheld world.  Well, the Pocket PC area of the handheld world at least.  Palm OS users will unfortunately have to sit on the sidelines due to issues with supportable drivers for Palm OS devices.  Rumor has it that SanDisk has working drivers for the Zire 71, but without being able to support all devices using a certain OS, this product will not see the light of day in the Palm world.

Tip Jar and Word From the Author

I hope you enjoyed and found this review of the SanDisk Wi-Fi card informative and helpful.  I'm a freelance writer and programmer based in New York.  If you did find this review helpful and have a $1.00 to spare as a tip or contribution to the "Baxter Fund for Buying More Tech Gadget Junk" it would be greatly appreciated, just click the button below to donate via PayPal.

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