The Q9C says it supports WiFi, though you don't get that functionality right out-of-the-box. You can get an SDIO card that fits in the MiniSD slot to add the functionality, which is useful if you don't have a data plan and want to use the internet or if you are traveling internationally and won't have access to your data plan.
The only company I'm aware of currently selling a MiniSD WiFI card is Spectec, and they're surprisingly reasonably priced. The card most people are getting for this phone is the SDW-822 which supports 802.11b (the card that supports g costs nearly twice as much). There's a "regular" version of the 822 card for around $35, and a "Motorola" version with the same model number for around $45.
I tried to verify with Spectec what the differences were and was essentially told that the Motorola version was required since I had a Motorola phone running WM 6.0. However, the seller got mixed up and sent me the regular version of the card so I decided to try it anyways using the updated WM6.0 driver off their website. It turned out that card worked just fine, and I confirmed with Spectec that there isn't any risk of issues down the road if I got it working right now. Basically they said that the Motorola version was designed for a lower power requirement since older/other versions of the Q didn't supply enough power through the miniSD port.
So you can get the Spectec MiniSD Wifi card, and the regular version will work just fine in the Q9C. I do not know if it will work in other versions like the Motorola Q9M.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Wifi via the Spectec MiniSD card
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I got one of these cards for my Q9c for verizon and i downloaded the updated driver from the website but i get no internet when i put the card in. is there anything else you need to do to get it working? is there some way i can check if the card is recognized? (maybe i have a faulty card). thanks. cool blog.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment! Are you sure you tried this driver? :
ReplyDeletehttp://www.spectec.com.tw/DOWNLOAD/moto-q-wlan-wm60/wlan11b_wm60.CAB
I believe that the 822 WM6.0 driver works for Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1, and once it is installed you can insert the card and it should automatically popup a window asking if it should search for networks.
I'd try restarting the phone after installing the driver, and otherwise try going to Settings->Connections->Wireless Manager and see if you have an entry for Wifi or Wireless. If you just see Bluetooth and Phone, it's not recognizing the card.
Thanks so much fo this very informative article. I will be ordering an SDIO soon
ReplyDeleteHow do I install the driver? It opens on my computer as an xml file.
ReplyDeleteAZ, the link I provided in the comment above should save to your computer as a CAB file. If you try opening that on your computer, you may be able to see it contains 2 files, an XML file and another file that ends with the extension ".001". In order to install the driver on the phone, you want to move the entire cab file to your phone (rather than the 2 individual files inside the cab). Then when you execute the CAB file from your phone, it will run the install.
ReplyDeleteFeel free to post back here if you have trouble. I haven't used my Windows phone in a while (I switched to Android a while ago), but I'm happy to try to help you get it working! Thanks for visiting the site!