Orange 3G Mobile Office Card

Orange holds back to deliver more impressive goods

Getting to market first isn't always all it's cracked up to be. Who remembers now that Creative beat Apple to producing a hard disk jukebox? Or that five or six companies unveiled digital video recorders before Sky took the wraps off Sky+?

Orange thinks it could have been first with a 3G/GPRS card for laptop PCs, but it let rival Vodafone launch first as it believed it would follow with a better product. It may be right too.

3G PC cards enable you to get online wirelessly at near-broadband speeds of up to 384Kbps - so, in theory, no matter where you are, downloading large files or streaming video is easy and simple.

The key here is getting decent 3G coverage, and this is where Orange scores. Not only does its network encompass an impressive 60 per cent of the country compared to Vodafone's 42 per cent, but the signals seem stronger and more robust too.

The card is very simple to install and use. Its PC interface might not be as elegant or easy to follow as Vodafone's, but it shouldn't be a worry - it only takes one click to get online, send an email or fire off a text.

Orange also has the edge over its rival in price. It costs £20 per month for 65MB of data - that's 15MB more than with Vodafone, which ain't bad at all.

Sure, there are weaknesses. There's no Mac compatibility, logging on takes an age and - like Vodafone's card - this struggles to find any kind of signal at all in weak 3G areas. It's still very much a work in progress, so don't expect ultra- fast Net connection all the time.

If you do fancy a 3G card for your notebook PC, though, this is definitely the one to go for.