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Comment by ryukafalz | Hacker News Reader

> They also don’t see performance along new dimensions which devices offer with glee. For example connectivity to cellular networks (still missing in even the fanciest laptop but available on my watch.)

What? Laptops with cellular connectivity have been available for years.

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I have (and had) laptop with slot for sim card for years but I never bothered to buy a sim card. I have gigabit ethernet port at work, at home, fast low latency wifi everywhere ...

I have never wished my laptop had cellular connectivity, I have always used a portable hotspot for that.

Portable hotspots are nice, sure - I do have one. Still feel like it'd be more convenient to have cellular connectivity built right in though; you always have some connectivity then provided you're not too remote.

I've considered switching to Google Fi solely because they provide data-only SIMs associated with your normal plan that I could then pop into a laptop. (Rather than making you pay twice as most providers do.)

Haven't been able to justify it yet though, I'm on a pretty good grandfathered plan at the moment.

the extra price per device that carriers charge makes this cost prohibitive. I'd be very interested in a laptop with cell service if I had a shared data plan across N personal devices.

> I'd be very interested in a laptop with cell service if I had a shared data plan across N personal devices.

My understanding is that's what Google Fi does: https://support.google.com/fi/answer/6330195?hl=en

They seem to be nearly the only ones, at least that I've found. (But I'd be glad to find more!)

Here in the UK we're starting to see data only SIMS with 100GB+ per month limits for only £20 p/m. To me this seems that the era of 'always connected' laptops is almost upon us.

So you have wished for it, you just used another device as a bridge to get it.

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