Sprint’s Sierra Wireless Compass 597 is tiny and sleek - USB EVDO Rev. A modem with style
Posted by Will on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 at 5:58 pm under CTIA Wireless 2008 @ Las Vegas, Sprint, Accessories, Announcements
If there’s one thing that gets attention in the tech-world, it’s Apple products. So, it makes sense that Sierra Wireless wanted to leverage the MacBook Air’s “hotness” to publicize their newly announced Sierra Wireless Compass 597 EVDO Rev. A USB modem.
The MacBook Air initially got my attention. Then I noticed the yellow-lit USB dongle sticking out of the Air’s notoriously slim and widely incompatible USB port. The Air’s design necessitates that everything be as slim and small as possible, and as such, the ultra-portable notebook from Apple suffers from a too-small USB port - many USB dongles and flash drives just don’t fit in the port. So, imagine my surprise when I saw this super slim USB modem stuck into the side of the MacBook Air!
Sierra Wireless has kept the formula simple with EVDO Rev. A allowing 3.1Mbps download speeds and upload speeds of up to 1.8Mbps, and built-in GPS allowing, well, GPS-related stuff. The included microSD card slot makes the Sierra Wireless Compass 597 a microSD card reader, too.
The bright-yellow indicator light on the tip of the Compass 597 lets you know when you’re locked on to Sprint’s network, and adds some pop to the otherwise nondescript USB modem.
Expect a Q2 2008 ship-date for the Sierra Wireless Compass 597. I’m waiting on my review unit to come in, so stay tuned to see how this slim little USB modem performs in the real world!
May 20th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
is their a antenna that can be purchased for sierra wirelesss compass 597
July 15th, 2008 at 12:30 am
is there a router that supports Sierra wireless compass 597 or other usb mobile card?
any brands will do. tnx
July 24th, 2008 at 9:22 am
@jeffery, here is a pic of an antenna attached to Compass:
http://www.evdoinfo.com/images/stories/Compass597_Booster_PHS300.png
the compass is working attached to a PHS300 router:
http://www.EVDOinfo.com/PHS300
you can get antennas for the compass here:
http://3gstore.com/compass
@ yuan, aside from the PHS300 router mentioned above, there are three other cradlepoint routers that work very well with the compass:
http://www.EVDOinfo.com/cradlepoint
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the EVDO Experts are at http://3gstore.com