How To Put A Sim Card In Your Laptop Please?

[funfun]

ive got a laptop but it rarely moves anywhere, i have wireless so not needed, now having been out tonight for a drink in my wisdom i bought a sim card for it, the thinking behind this when i go for visa run and no wifi in hotel/airport etc i can dial up!

well that was my first mistake, the card dosnt want to slot into ma laptop so where am i going wrong???

cheers

chris

[Guest Reimar]

ive got a laptop but it rarely moves anywhere, i have wireless so not needed, now having been out tonight for a drink in my wisdom i bought a sim card for it, the thinking behind this when i go for visa run and no wifi in hotel/airport etc i can dial up!

well that was my first mistake, the card dosnt want to slot into ma laptop so where am i going wrong???

cheers

chris

All you need is an Aircard, aCDMA Card or something like that, which means that you need an CDMA/GSM/GPRS/EDGE Modem Card whick will be placed in the PCMCIA or Express Card slot or connect to USB! The Sim Card will be placed in that Modem Module!

Cheers.

[funfun]

ive got a laptop but it rarely moves anywhere, i have wireless so not needed, now having been out tonight for a drink in my wisdom i bought a sim card for it, the thinking behind this when i go for visa run and no wifi in hotel/airport etc i can dial up!

well that was my first mistake, the card dosnt want to slot into ma laptop so where am i going wrong???

cheers

chris

All you need is an Aircard, aCDMA Card or something like that, which means that you need an CDMA/GSM/GPRS/EDGE Modem Card whick will be placed in the PCMCIA or Express Card slot or connect to USB! The Sim Card will be placed in that Modem Module!

Cheers.

thanks Reimar

computor is acer aspire 5051anwxmi if that means owt,

little plastic drawer on left hand side size of a credit card someone said thats where ya sim card goes

i bought a normal sim card that you would normally snap out of plastic card and tried fitting card in but its slightly too big unless im doing somthing wrong?

or is it a special diferent card?

[sfokevin]

Better you stick to pencil and paper during visa runs...

[malcolmswaine]

I've found a couple of baked bean cans attached together with string to be adequate for remote comms. I did have initial problems finding the baked bean can slot on my notebook though.

[JohnC]

I think you missed the point, the sim card fits into either a solomons modem or a Aircard, aCDMA Card, alternatively if you have a mobile phone with gprs/edge you can use that on your laptop and if you have bluetooth on both laptop and mobile then you dont need cables to connect.

[sjaak327]

Yep, just use a bluetooth phone and you are good to go. No need for a separate sim.

It's not going to be fast though, but for basic email using a web browser it does okay.

[sensei]

The SIM is the cheapest of all the things that you need.

you'll be lucky to find an aircard for 5K (used).

It usually goes from 10K up

So the story goes lik this...

The SIM goes into the aircard

The aircard goes into the computer with the SIM in it

There is no shortcut or a direct way to get the SIM into a computer without an aircard.

If you are planning to us that SIM outside Thailand when you go out for your visa runs,

dialing home from outside could be very expensive since it will be on roaming.

Bad idea. They're right when they said stick to your blutooth phone or better leave the laptop at home and enjoy the sights.

Edited February 27, 2008 by sensei

[monty]

Hi FunFun,

No laptop will take a simcard directly.

For this to work you will need an aircard, which will fit in the slot on the side of your laptop.

It is in this aircard you can stick your simcard!

An aircard is basically a modem, using the GSM network (either Dtac or AIS) to access the internet (that's why you need to stick a simcard in!).

Your Acer model takes regular PCMCIAA cards, so the proper aircard for you would be a Sierra Wireless 775. This card is end of life, so you probably should be able to find it at a reasonable price...

Looks like this:

Alternatively you can use your phone to act as a modem, you just need to find the way to connect your phone to your laptop! Your Acer has bluetooth, so if you have a bluetooth phone, you can even leave it in your pocket when you want to access the internet, as bluetooth will connect to your phone wireless up to a few meters distance! Only drawback is that you can drain the battery of your phone quite fast when connected to the internet that way.

And another alternative is to use a USB GPRS/EDGE modem. Instead of sliding in the slot on the side of your laptop, you can connect this device to any USB port (so it also works on a normal PC). Again, it is in this device you can stick your simcard.

Looks like this:

The above model is the Solomon SEGM-520, available in most laptop shops in TukCom.

As for prices, expect to find the Sierra wireless 775 at a tad under 10,000 Baht, and the solomon USB thingy at around 5,500 Baht.

[funfun]

Hi FunFun,

No laptop will take a simcard directly.

For this to work you will need an aircard, which will fit in the slot on the side of your laptop.

It is in this aircard you can stick your simcard!

An aircard is basically a modem, using the GSM network (either Dtac or AIS) to access the internet (that's why you need to stick a simcard in!).

Your Acer model takes regular PCMCIAA cards, so the proper aircard for you would be a Sierra Wireless 775. This card is end of life, so you probably should be able to find it at a reasonable price...

Looks like this:

Alternatively you can use your phone to act as a modem, you just need to find the way to connect your phone to your laptop! Your Acer has bluetooth, so if you have a bluetooth phone, you can even leave it in your pocket when you want to access the internet, as bluetooth will connect to your phone wireless up to a few meters distance! Only drawback is that you can drain the battery of your phone quite fast when connected to the internet that way.

And another alternative is to use a USB GPRS/EDGE modem. Instead of sliding in the slot on the side of your laptop, you can connect this device to any USB port (so it also works on a normal PC). Again, it is in this device you can stick your simcard.

Looks like this:

The above model is the Solomon SEGM-520, available in most laptop shops in TukCom.

As for prices, expect to find the Sierra wireless 775 at a tad under 10,000 Baht, and the solomon USB thingy at around 5,500 Baht.

Thanks posters,

eeee new technology eh, what sort of range can you get out of 2 baked beans tins im not going far these days, maybe laos, now do they have to be HP or will asdas own smart price do?

have a mobile phone with blue tooth, but it wont find my computor and niether will the computor find the phone, the phone is an apple iphone and although its the best phone ive used, it got some very annoying things that arnt user friendly (well dummy friendly), now bluetooth is switched on and cannot detect a nokia phone either same other way around, so phones out of it and id rather not change the phone cos 85% of it is ace!

so monty its looking like either buy an air card that can do onlly one job at 10,000 or buy a cheap b/tooth phone for about 3000 that i can always use in emegencys, but id have to charge that up all the time, or go for Solomon SEGM-520, which i presume it will power out of the usb port

is that about it monty am i on the rough idea?

now suppose i am on the right track with above it would be down to sim card, a pakage for internet (read a post a while ago said 500 a month for x amount of hours) plus me phones on true which is crap at best and dosent support edge (i know this cos it tells me 20 times a day)

so what im trying to say is send someone to shop and get a segm520 then a what sim would be bestish?

cheers people

ps if this post gives the impresion im not very cleaver, its a lie!!!!! i can do math!

[autonomous_unit]

All of the recent Motorola phones I've used with GPRS/EDGE on a laptop have simultaneously charged their batteries off the mini-USB cable connection I use for data. In fact, this is my only way to charge the phone on most trips, since I carry the laptop and its power brick and don't see the need for the extra phone charger clutter in my bag.

If you don't need much speed, plain GPRS is fine for basic web browsing and email, and cheaper. EDGE helps when browsing with lots of image content. A Motorola V360 acts as a pretty reasonable EDGE modem, but I am not sure of the price today. It was pretty affordable back when we bought one, compared to other EDGE offerings available at the time.

I don't see why anybody buys an air card or special USB modem instead of a plain jane phone. I just make sure my primary phone is capable enough, and never needed to buy a second modem.

Edit: I've found DTAC a good deal for infrequent internet use. You can call them up and enable "unlimited GPRS" for a single day or a single week and it is debited from your pre-paid balance. They have EDGE where I've tried around Bangkok, at least. Since I also usually use wireless/ADSL I only need to do this once in a blue moon but I need it to fully replace my usual workload at those times, so the per-kilobyte pricing would cost too much on most other plans. I don't know the current pricing as I haven't used this in about a year, but it used to be something like 250 THB/week or less than 100 THB/day if I remember correctly.

Edited February 27, 2008 by autonomous_unit

[jstumbo]

the phone is an apple iphone

I thought these phones were supposed to be made for browsing the web? You should just do all your browsing on your iphone directly and not need your computer during your short trips.

[Richard-BKK]

Going online cheap, you go to MBK center look for a GRPS/EDGE telephone (preferable a Nokia 6210 or something similar) buy a data cable and you in business.

For the second hand Nokia 6210 maybe 1000 Baht, data cable 200 to 300 Baht and a high speed internet connection at home to download the Nokia Modem software from the Nokia website.

The Nokia 6210 (a black and white telephone) go’s for hours with its battery. Most Bluetooth telephones are color display and by using GPRS and Bluetooth at the same time will run quickly out of battery power.

My g/f is using our aircard and me using an old Nokia phone, we never really tested the speed but it seems that I’m faster using my old Swedish buddy.

One more thing, buy prepay GPRS hours, not sure if your GSM provider does that, but it saves you a lot of money.

[miniwai]

Hiya Funfun,

Sorry I can't help laughing, but have this picture in my head of you trying to fit your simcard into your PCMCIAA slot.

Any way I'm getting the impression your not quite up to speed on all this high tech stuff. So as you mentioned your best bet is to just use a mobile. (you can use your Iphone, but I'm thinking the setup might be a little too complicated. look HERE if you wanna try though). Richard-BKK's post is the best advice (post 13) just get a cheap Edge phone from MBK (with data cable, then you don't have to charge it!)

As has been said though to use outside of Thailand i.e. on a visa run, you'll be roaming and this will be very expensive! In Malaysia just get a local simcard! Dunno about Loas though.

One final thing you have an Iphone! whats wrong with using the browser/email client on that? Saves taking the laptop with you.

Edited February 27, 2008 by miniwai

[funfun]

Hiya Funfun,

Sorry I can't help laughing, but have this picture in my head of you trying to fit your simcard into your PCMCIAA slot.

Any way I'm getting the impression your not quite up to speed on all this high tech stuff. So as you mentioned your best bet is to just use a mobile. (you can use your Iphone, but I'm thinking the setup might be a little too complicated. look HERE if you wanna try though). Richard-BKK's post is the best advice (post 13) just get a cheap Edge phone from MBK (with data cable, then you don't have to charge it!)

As has been said though to use outside of Thailand i.e. on a visa run, you'll be roaming and this will be very expensive! In Malaysia just get a local simcard! Dunno about Loas though.

One final thing you have an Iphone! whats wrong with using the browser/email client on that? Saves taking the laptop with you.

"One final thing you have an Iphone! whats wrong with using the browser/email client on that? Saves taking the laptop with you"

cos its like this

i dont know how to use that either!!!!!

back at home (pattaya) got wireless, so iphone and l/top both fine, & free, im now in dusit koh chang an its 500bhat 1 days internet !!!!!

i think i only pay for broadband inc wifi 600 bhat 1 month in pattaya!!!!!

the iphone is spot on with checking emails browsing sending pictures etc but try putting pictures on a website from one or copy an pasteing etc

and as you said i was actully trying to fit a sim card in laptop

ill have to sort it out, its doing ma head in

think ya right go wi richards option, only thing putting me off that last year got an all singing and dancing nokia 6131 did everything, well it might have done i was never off the nokia help website, downloading cable drivers etc that wernt compatible wi my pc?????

thanks again chaps!

[ThunderDuck]

No laptop will take a simcard directly.

This is not correct.

There are a quite a few laptops that will accomodate a sim internally (eg dell 1400 / 1420) and provide

a more elegant solution to mobile communications.

[monty]

No laptop will take a simcard directly.

This is not correct.

There are a quite a few laptops that will accomodate a sim internally (eg dell 1400 / 1420) and provide

a more elegant solution to mobile communications.

Sorry, let me rephrase that, no laptop sold in Thailand!

It is indeed common in for example the USA and I've seen the in Autralia as well. Seems to have gotten a bit more popular with the faster mobile speeds available there.

The dell inspiron 1420 you mention above, supposedly only works when you have a Vodafone subscription (which I think uses CDMA EV-DO)!

http://www.dell.com/content/products/produ...n&s=dhs#tn2

[funfun]

Hiya Funfun,

Sorry I can't help laughing, but have this picture in my head of you trying to fit your simcard into your PCMCIAA slot.

Any way I'm getting the impression your not quite up to speed on all this high tech stuff. So as you mentioned your best bet is to just use a mobile. (you can use your Iphone, but I'm thinking the setup might be a little too complicated. look HERE if you wanna try though). Richard-BKK's post is the best advice (post 13) just get a cheap Edge phone from MBK (with data cable, then you don't have to charge it!)

As has been said though to use outside of Thailand i.e. on a visa run, you'll be roaming and this will be very expensive! In Malaysia just get a local simcard! Dunno about Loas though.

One final thing you have an Iphone! whats wrong with using the browser/email client on that? Saves taking the laptop with you.

oh and you were right about complicated i did look

look HERE

then i lit a cig up, opened a tin and left!

cheers though!