I have used it at home with my LinkSys access point without problems. I have also used it at work and at Denver Airport without problems. Leave the SSID blank to have it work with any system.

Works well with Vindigo and Avantgo, as does hotsync. The included mail program is reasonable. The web broswer (Blazer) is not the most current version, and trying to get to V2 has been a bit of a problem so far. The reviews and comment's I have seen indicate that V2.0 of Blazer is alot better, but I am happy with the included version.

The range is comparable to my notebook PC-card.

One of the nice touchs is that the module comes with File Mover on the module, which lets you use the 674Kb of module memory however you would like.

Although, I know there are some problems with the LinkSys that many folks are having. Just because it works for me, doesn't mean it will work for you. I read on VisorCentral where many folks are having problems. One thing I do know, don't upgrade the flash in the Xircom adapter beyond 1.10 (on Intel's website). I did this and the unit would no longer communicate with the WAP11. I wound up calling Xircom and having the unit replaced back down to SWE App. v1.10. Which again worked great!

I'm only giving this unit 4 *'s because I know that there are problems that were worsened with Xircom's latest firmware release. Other than that, with my experience with it, it's been a great device... ;)

I wish Norman had posted how he got it to work, I could not. After touching all the bases tech at Xircom and Linksys, downloading firmware updates blah blah blah my emotion moved to unbounded pain.

It hit the return chute today. I just couldn't stand it anymore.

The hotsynch worked first time, but the browser would not get me a web site. Something to do with DNS I guess. Anyway, I spent three days tearing my hair out and am done with this for a while.

I have been testing the Xircom SpringPort Wireless Ethernet adapter (SWE) for about a month now; some of you may have seen me walking around with a cool-looking device sticking out of my Visor PDA. I have been checking my email, looking up sports scores real-time, accessing the NextBus N-Judah predictions, reading news, and much more. The SWE is compatible with the industry standard 802.11b protocol and should work with most wireless networks. This means that you can use the same unit at school, at home, or anywhere else with a wireless network (you may need to change your configuration to work with each network; the SWE allows for 3 custom configurations).

The top speed for this and other wireless ethernet adapters is 11 megabits per second, roughly 1.25 megabytes per second. However, actual throughput depends on interference and distance from the network antenna.

There is a built-in nickel metal hydride rechargeable battery to power the unit, resulting in a minimal drain on your Visor batteries. However, maintaining a wireless connection consumes a lot of power and I found that one full charge allows for approximately 2 hours of continuous network activity. This is more than enough for the average day's worth of checking email and medical searches on the Internet. Although it was a minor inconvenience to use the separate charger for my Visor Deluxe, Visor Edge and Prism owners have the luxury of seamless integration with the cradle for sync'ing and charging. Recharging is relatively fast and takes approximately one hour to fully charge a depleted battery.

Xircom is selling SWE units faster than they can make them. SWE is well constructed and sleek, a nice complement to the Visor graphite. Although the functionality is seamless and it is very easy to use, I don't believe that the Internet is PDA-friendly enough. The utility of the SWE is limited by the quality of the Internet websites (and the price should therefore also be limited, according to economic theory). I would imagine that students probably would not be willing to pay more than about (dollar amount) for this module. I wonder who all the "early adopters" are-they must be wealthy if they are willing to spend (dollar amount) on a module for their Visor handheld.

This module is a wonderful gadget to add to your tech collection, but it is hardly worth purchasing at this time unless you have money to burn. (...) Moreover, only a few websites have a specially designed text-only or PDA-friendly page (Yahoo Mobile, Synapse Mobile, CNN). Even though you are connected real-time to the Internet and the memory footprint on your Visor is not really a concern (files are stored only temporarily in cache), large images slow down the loading of a page and often hinders reading of relevant information. Most websites are poorly designed and difficult to view across all web browsers and operating systems anyway--making a PDA-friendly version is low priority on most webmaster todo lists. So until more websites actually offer PDA-friendly pages and the price of the SWE module drops by at least half, this review finds that the Xircom SpringPort Wireless Ethernet module for Handspring Visors is a neat gadget with great potential, but not worth getting unless you have the medical condition known as MCOW (first publicized in a public service announcement by E*Trade during the 2000 Super Bowl, where a guy in critical condition is wheeled into the ER and the doctors gasp when they find that he's got "money coming out the wazoo").

At first, I could not use the SpringPort at all due to the fact that it does not work with my LinkSys access point.

After two weekends of messing around, tracing, reviewing logs, etc. I finally discovered (on my own, with NO help from the non-technical support department at Xircom/Intel) that incompatibility between the Linksys AP and the SpringPort relates to DHCP. You can fix this, and enable your SpringPort by: (a) reserving at least one ip address that is not used by the dhcp server built into the Linksys AP; (b) disabling dhcp on the Xircom card and setting the unit to a fixed IP address not used by the Linksys Dhcp server; and (c) manually entering name servers and gateway information on the Xircom card. If you have a Linksys router, and do not understand the foregoing -- DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT!!! Xircom tech support cannot help you!!! They have NO IDEA what the problem is or how to fix it!!!

The LinkSys access point works with every major wireless card I have tried -- EXCEPT the SpringPort. Unfortunately, Intel/Xircom doesn't seem to have a very good attitude about this. Here is a quote from the latest of about four very short, unconcerned emails from them: "There is nothing wrong with the Xircom card. It just does not connect to a Linksys BEFW11S4. It is a issue that our engineers are working on but have not yet come up with a fix. You can either wait for a new release of the drivers, or return the card to the vendor that you purchased it through. " So they acknowledge the problem but claim there is "nothing" wrong with their module. If I could rate this product and this company with NEGATIVE I would.

Finally, now that I have it working ... i am very disappointed with the speed. I have the latest "Pro" handspring, with 16MB and the fastest processor. Yet getting email takes 5-10 seconds per HEADER, and 30-60 seconds for EACH ITEM OF EMAIL!!!! The "Blazer" browser is similarly slow ... about 1-14Kb which is equal to a dialup modem speed from about 10 years ago. Why so slow??? I have no idea. I have great signal strength, all my other 802.11b devices work flawlessly -- and fast (usually 2-4Mb) -- and the problem is not the software since both Blazer and the Multimail are equally slow. I do not think it is the Palm OS either, since synchronization is fast (certainly faster than getting email over the 802.11b connection) which implies that the hardware and OS are not the limiting factors. I note also that one other reviewer below mentioned slow email speeds, so I am not alone either. I would be curious to know if ANYONE has these things working at a speed faster than a dialup modem.

The module allows up to 3 different wireless configurations. I am able to move readily between the wireless networks at work and at home.

One minor difficulty is the battery life. If you don't have a powered cradle, you need to remember to hook your Visor up to the (supplied) module charger regularly.

I was particularly delighted that the module comes with built-in Web browser and e-mail (POP3/IMAP) applications, so I can use the module right away and not consume precious Visor memory with new programs. The Web browser is able to display (small) graphics, but don't expect it to handle Flash, Shockwave, or even Frame content.

I would have liked to see the e-mail app handle HTML markup in mail messages since they already have that code in the Web broswer app. If you have a LOT of e-mail, it will take many minutes to download. (I averaged 5 messages a minute.)

Pros: - - I'm able to check email (POP3 and IMAP4), hotsync to my PC across the network and browse the internet with the included software. According to the manual, those are the only functions advertised. Occasionally, you'll get web pages that, due to formatting, are clumsy to navigate, but you'll find they're good enough to get what you want. Many big sites such as CNN, MSNBC, Yahoo, etc. are making their pages "PDA friendly", and they're actually very readable. - - Contains a signal strength meter that seems to be pretty close to laptops we used for our site survey (and indicator LEDS). It uses a bar graph, but I wish it had a direct numeric read out also. - - Has three different "profiles" settings, making it possible to have 3 different network logins and settings. - - Supports standard 802.11b WEP security (40 or 128 bit). - - Support for Infrastructure or AdHoc mode. - - Supports DHCP and static IP addressing. Both tested fine. - - Battery life is much better than expected. The manual quotes 2 hrs, and that's about what I get using it pretty hard. Because of the high frequency radio waves (2.4 Ghz), it almost gets too warm to hold for that long! Of course, when winter comes here, that will be a plus ! - - Doesn't use battery power from the Visor, instead it has it's own Li-Ion battery and includes a charger. Charge time is about 2 hours. The module has a software battery meter like the Visor does. And will give the user "pop-up" messages when the battery gets critically low. - - Network Hotsync feature works great. As long as I can login into a WAP, I can hotsync, install files, get new meetings and appointments from Outlook, etc. from my desktop PC anywhere on campus. - - Has power management features for auto-logging off after a preset time period. - - Contains a Cisco chipset, but have connected to three different manufacture's WAP's with no problems, getting the full 11 mb/s. - - Range appears to be comparable to other 802.11b ethernet products.

Cons: - - Had a problem with the included browser software "Blazer", but Xircom sent me a patch to gain a user login. There are other browsers you can use, such as AvantGo and Eudora. I like AvantGo, but you have to have connect to a server that is running AvantGo. It does, however, do a nice job of formatting web pages to fit the Palm screen, and you can keep pages "active" by having them cached on your desktop before doing a hotsync. Also, Eudora provides a free PDA internet suite, that includes a browser and email client, sounds good, but haven't tried it yet. - - A little bulkier than the other modules, due to it's battery and antenna. - -My only problem has been logging into my web-based managed network devices or mapping drives. - -Tends to become a "hand heater" after awhile of use (High freq. RF power dissipation for sure!). - - Also even with the fast WLAN connection, I believe due to the Visor Deluxe's slower processor, it acts as a bottleneck for the internet connection. I would probably buy the faster model (Platinum) instead of the Deluxe. There is a noticeable difference in loading pages.

Summary: I LOVE this thing!! I'm able to sit out under a tree and surf the net, send/rev email, check appointments and put it in my pocket when I'm done. Battery power is sufficient for doing all the tasks I needed to. I would have given this device a 5-star rating if it included the ability to use utilities such as Ping and Telnet... (Opinions and comments written here are of my own and do not reflect my employer's policies or opinions.)

Update 7/21: I have recently found several of the tcp/ip utilities I had desired. I am now able to ping and telnet to my devices. The telnet is a little clumsy with the screen format, but it does work! Both of those utilites are easily found on the internet, or send me email and I'll send them to you. The latest test was the ICQ Palm client, which, so far, as also worked well. I have no choice but to give this thing a 5-star rating now !