[Ben]

Ordered me the Pro dongle with the memory card slot from Vodafone today. Had to renew one of my data accounts for 18 months (the buggers wanted 24, but kudos for listening to me when I said "er, no") but I kept the same tariff (£18/mo +VAT with no usage cap) and paid nothing for the dongle.

I love my E220 but needed another USB device, otherwise I'd not have bothered. Will be interesting to see how their current flagship USB modem compares - I'll be sure to keep you posted, no doubt it'll show up tomorrow!

[getti]

I have been using the Pro stick for about 2 months on the same deal your on. Getting about 2.5mb speeds here in Torquay which im REALLY pleased about

[Ben]

Am just hoping it picks up signal well enough - I was always surprised by how much better the E220 was than the PCMCIA laptop cards before it.

[Hands0n]

Is the Pro really without a usage cap? Or is there the usual Vodafone hidden agenda stuff? I'm out of contract with my £15/3GB USB stick and could stand to pay the extra £5 to not worry about data caps

[getti]

The £18 is without VAT so it costs about £21 a month. Gives 5GB but if you go over then you just get a slower connection there is no charge for going over

[getti]

Funny enough i just gave 30 days notice on my modem today and will be putting the 5GB for £20 new data pack on my phone as it works the same and i dont have to worry about taking a modem, just have my phone and im on the net or as a modem

[Ben]

See I can't stand using a phone for net access on a laptop, I like the dedicated device route. Costs more, of course.

[Ben]

Got it: Sexy! Will test it soon.

Manufactured by Option :S

[Ben]

Installing Vodafone Mobile Connect wasn't easy. Took ages, in fact. For anyone who experiences the application opening but hanging and never actually displaying the main window, here are some tips:

- In Activity Monitor quit anything related to VMC, including anything by Nova (some PowerPC stuff, I noticed!)
- Open the installer, agree to the license agreement and then on the second step select Uninstall from the drop down. Proceed.
- Check Library > Application Support for any Vodafone or Nova folders. Trash them if there are any. Also check Applications for any Vodafone remnants and trash them, too.

Mac should now be clean of VMC filth.

- Open Directory Utility, go to Edit and enable root account.
- Log out and back in as root
- Insert dongle, install software, restart as prompted
- Open VMC, activate the dongle
- Log out and back in as yourself, and disable the root account again.

Bit of a chore. *yawn*

Device itself seems good, pulling over 2mbps at my office. Not tried the memory card slots on it.

Edit:

Sat at home on the sofa, a bad spot in the house for signal on all networks.
Speed Down 2076.34 Kbps ( 2 Mbps )
Speed Up 1075.70 Kbps ( 1.1 Mbps )