EV-DO vs. Wi-Fi: my real world test

Backgrounder: on Tuesday, I upgraded my hp notebook to SprintNextel's brand of EV-DO. Specs: 400-700 kbps. Coverage area: most larger and quite a few mid-size metro areas in the U.S. That's the Seattle-Tacoma metro coverage area in gold.

One of the key drivers for my EV-DO is that I move around quite a bit around my home region (Pacific Northwest), and sometimes I just don't have the time to stop pull off the road and try to find a Wi-Fi hotspot.

So I am on Amtrak yesterday, on the way from Portland to Seattle and the blog-oriented Gnomedex show.

Turns out that during the train ride, BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion released their quarterly earnings. I needed to post some stuff to my BBHub BlackBerry blog in a hurry.

That would mean pulling the info out of the air, logging on to the blog publishing tool and write my analysis-all while rolling on the rails at about 79 mph.

Well, it wasn't that easy. EV-DO has blind spots. And during those blind spots, you wind up going offline and the publishing tool goes offline at well.

If you haven't saved your work, you are lost.

Considering SprintNextel's EV-DO in ths part of the world is configured for best performance along the I-5 corridor, and the train runs several miles west of the Interstate, no surprise that I had to attempt posting four or five times before I got my post through.

But once I arrived at Gnomedex, I had the choice of going with my EV-DO or using the conference Wi-Fi.

I voted for the latter. Faster (1.544 mps at least in theory vs. 400-700 kbps for Ev-DO). More stable as well, but then again, I am sitting here in a stationary mode, not moving along at 79 mph.

Bottom line:

I'm glad my notebook has EV-DO AND 802.11g Wi-Fi capability.

Props to EV-DO: ideal for when you are on the move, and flexibility of adding on whenever and to a growing extent, wherever you want.

Props to Wi-Fi: ideal for filing when you are going to be at one place for awhile.

What's your experience been?