Posted February 12, 2009
If you’ve been tempted to get a mobile broadband card—a compact wireless modem that lets you connect a laptop to the internet at high speed pretty much wherever you are, without having to search for a Wi-Fi hotspot—now’s a pretty great time to do it. A year ago, you might have lucked out and gotten a free card when you signed a two-year contract for service (typically around $60 a month) from one of the major wireless broadband providers. Now one provider, AT&T, has sweetened the deal by working with RadioShack to throw in an actual computer for just $100: an Acer Aspire One Netbook, one of the new breed of amazingly compact laptops that we’ve been raving about in Best Bets Daily. This baby weighs just 2 pounds, measures 9.8 x 6.7 inches (and just over an inch thick), has a bright 8.9-inch screen, and comes with Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition (yay, not Vista!). The keyboard is surprisingly nice, though guys with big hands might balk at using it. Especially on the girly pink model shown here. (It’s also available in basic black or white.) Because you need to get the thing activated in person at RadioShack, it’s not sold online, but you can ogle it and find out more specs through the link below.
$100 with a two-year AT&T AirCard contract, plus $36 activation fee, at RadioShack.