Hasta La Gadget!

Although they’ve said it’s their future, Sprint hasn’t jumped into the WiMAX pool with both feet. Up until now, their official mobile WiMAX lineup has consisted only of a single, somewhat lackluster modem, the U300. 

I’ve heard there’s going to be a lot of news around Sprint WiMAX at the CES trade show in January. But until then, Sprint is at least upgrading the U300 to a new unit, the U301. The U301 offers 3G and WiMAX, just like the U300 did, but it’s smaller, it comes with Mac and Windows 7 support, and it hopefully doesn’t actually burn your hands (our U300 tended to get very hot.)

Sprint estimates 600 kbps downloads on a 3G network using the U301’s Qualcomm QSC6085 chipset, and 6 mbps on WiMAX with the Beceem BCSM250 chipset. We’ll get to check out the U301 in Las Vegas soon, so we’ll tell you how well it does compared to its predecessor.

Sprint’s “4G” WiMax service costs $9.99/day, or $69.99/month for a combined 3G/4G plan.