Sony-Ericsson to Launch HSDPA-based Mobile Phones

Some of you might have already heard about the HSDPA mobile phone technology, also known as 3.5G protocol. While deriving directly from the 3G network, and not requiring massive modification of the network hardware, it boosts communication speed to up to 3 to 4 Mbits/s.
In France, SFR (Vodafone partner) and Orange have launched this offer, but to take advantage of such data transfer speed, one needs to use a dedicated cards, such as the Merlin XU870 that we test previously in this article.
Well, it might change, in a near future as Sony Ericsson plans to launch 2 new HSPDA-based mobile phone, Z750 and W580. However, they will first be available in USA, a country mostly using GSM and with a very small 3G network, before being available for the rest of the world by the end of the year. The geographical and timing availability look similar to the one of the iPhone...
However to use such mobile with a computer, one will need a USB2 connection, as BT2 should not be fast enough; and when one knows how poor are the USB drivers on Mac for such mobile phone-based modem usage, it would probably be a better investment to get keep a dedicated card as the merlin.