Yesterday I reviewed the Sprint Overdrive by Sierra Wireless. It’s a nicely sized, compact device that’s easy to carry around at 3.14″ x 3.14″ x .61″. It takes almost two hours for the Overdrive to fully charge, which is a little bit annoying, but reasonable considering how long it lasts. The battery lasts for approximately 4-5 hours, and that includes checking the speed every couple of minutes. On standby I’d imagine it would last much longer. There is also a useful indicator on top informing you if the Overdrive is running on Sprint’s 3G or “4G” service.
My first test took place in my office. After ten minutes the device said it was at 12 MB which didn’t make so much sense at the time. That’s a nice speed for something wireless, but the office network itself is a lot faster. I then realized that 12MB was the data sent and received, not the speed. When the device is connected, type in http://192.168.0.1/ into your web browser to see information about your current session. This was a very convenient tool for me, because I couldn’t read all the keys on the screen, and the online portal helps magnify them. After registering the Overdrive, you can log in and check what’s going on online. It turns out that at my office the signal was “very weak” (10%), which explains why none of the music videos I tried to access on YouTube would buffer. Some stats I saw were that I used 28.4 MB in data (2.32 MB sent and 26.1 MB received) and that I was roaming (in New York City?). So that’s why my Yahoo homepage took a good 30 seconds to load…
It’s a lot more convenient to use the Overdrive in a more open area, like in a moving car. I tried that after I got off from work with an iPod Touch and the service was great. I could instantly access both my Facebook and e-mail. Downloads were at least twice as fast as I had expected. I would definitely not mind using it on my commute to and from work each day, and it would be even handier on a long road trip. It would be interesting to see if the Overdrive could find a connection on a boat if it were only a mile or two from shore. There will be more news regarding connecting the Overdrive on a boat to come.
The most beneficial use of the Overdrive, however, took place in my basement. The Overdrive had almost perfect connectivity and its speed even surpassed what my Linksys router provides. Some of the slowest websites online went faster than I have ever experienced with a wireless network. I would definitely invest my own money in it just for that, cancelling my useless DSL to make room for the new and better WiMAX service available today.
