Integrated Mobile Broadband

So Lenovo is giving out the limited offer for T410 with 4gb ram and 500 Gb Hard Disk Drive.
With school discount and coupon, I can get almost all options for about $1000. Except it doesnt have any support for Integrated Mobile Broadband.

I just graduated from high school so ...How necessary and convenient is Integrated Mobile Broadband for college? I intend to spend this one for at least 2, 3 years and it is a good deal with great specs. Will I be able to have Integrated Mobile Broadband if I opt to in the future?
thanks for all comments

 

Lenovo's integrated broadband is actually really good, it has better signal reception and transmission than the simple usb solution. Furthermore, the usb dongle for the 3.5G wireless broadband is really easily snapped (i have snapped over 3 as far) and could easily damage your usb slot if you are not careful.

 

That being said, don't most schools provide free wifi access in their classrooms? Mobile broadband plans start at about $30/month I believe. Personally I wouldn't bother with mobile broadband unless free wifi won't be available where you'll regularly be using your laptop.

 

yeah at my school wifi is everywhere. even outside of the classrooms.

 

then I'll just take it as is
thanks

 

The integrated mobile broadband is a must have for any road warrior! A nice choice!

 

Road warrior in School/ College, which is where the OP is going to be?

 

my thinkpad's wwan card has really poor reception compared to 3's huawei usb modem. A lot of times I have to turn off my laptop take out the sim card and put into the usb modem in order to get connected to the internet.

 

do you have a problem with driver/software conflict?

 

i'm using windows 7 wwan connection software, I couldn't use lenovo's because it was have conflict with windows 7

 

I say, forget about integrated WWAN. It's going to cost you like $60 a month for 5GB, assuming you are in the US that is.

 

whoa that costs more than the Australian one, here in Australia 6 GB is only around 39 dollars per month.

 

in Vietnam, it costs about 5$/month, unlimited bandwidth . Download link is 7.2Mbps, but upload link is much slower, as I recall, 384Kbps

 

holy cow! funny how developing countries are doing better than developed countries in the broadband area.

 

Because apparently, developing countries (India included) have figured out that they can skip one or two generations of technologies and leapfrog into newer technologies at a lesser cost with a much higher impact (in terms of mass penetration).

Currently, in India, you will can see this with the rapid proliferation of 3G connections and WiMax (where the geography of the land) permits it (especially in the rural areas).

 

actually, they are doing well in public transport, mobile communication and other high tech areas too.

 

At the risk of going off-topic...I agree, though sometimes I think they are doing so a bit indiscriminately, with little thought to the future, the environment, integration with existing facilities and capacity planning. Sometimes causes really piquant situations (at least in someplaces in India)!