Franklin Wireless supplies modems (primarily of the CDMA variety) to a number of carriers across the Western Hemisphere, and they've introduced a handful of rather interesting new products in that vein here at CTIA this week. First up, the U600 is an EV-DO Rev. A / WiMAX hybrid USB modem with a 270-degree swiveling USB connector for those ridiculously hard-to-manage ports (
ahem, Apple), integrated GPS, and zero-CD installation -- all pretty standard features these days, and we saw a Sprint-branded unit at Franklin's booth which leads us to believe we'll be seeing it at retail shortly.
Much more interesting, though, was a pair of pocketable WiFi routers -- the R526 and R536 -- that support EV-DO and EV-DO / WiMAX, respectively. Most of the units were unbranded, but we did spy an R536 done up in snow white with a Clear logo slapped up top, so you can pretty much gather that this thing will be filling a glaring hole in Clear's lineup (right now, the best you can do is a USB modem plus the Clear Spot, which is basically a branded
Cradlepoint). What intrigued us about the R536 the most was the fact that it's got the functionality of an
Overdrive packed into a smaller, more
MiFi-esque form factor without any of the Overdrive's bells and whistles, so it'll be a great alternative as long as it performs well and has enough juice to last a couple hours off the power grid; the 3G-only R526, meanwhile, had an Ethernet jack stuck on the side, which is kind of cool in the rare event that you need to connect a WiFi-less device and you don't want to go through the hassle of installing a new driver. The R526 launches in April (with what carrier, we're not sure) -- as does the U600 -- while the R536 should start to trickle out in May.
Franklin Wireless intros U600 WiMAX modem, R526 and R536 mobile routers originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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