The Verizon Wireless UM150 (made by Pantech) is the poor man's Novatel Wireless U727. Like the USB727, it's a USB modem for Verizon's EV-DO Rev A network with a built-in microSD memory card reader. It's larger, clunkier, and slower than the U727, but it will cost you $150 less.

At 3.5 inches long and 1.2 inches wide, with an additional pull-out 2.5-inch antenna, the UM150 is not going to go unnoticed when it's sticking out of your USB port. A microSD card slot on the side lets the UM150 double as a memory card reader, and it took our 4GB Kingston card without complaints. Unlike most other wireless cards, the UM150 also has a useful signal-strength indicator on its front. Other small LEDs show whether the UM150 has a microSD card plugged in and whether it's receiving power—all useful for troubleshooting.

We connected the UM150 to Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Mac OS 10.4.11 laptops without problems, getting online using Verizon's VZAccess Manager software. Like all Verizon Wireless modems, it requires a $60-per-month unlimited data plan (which isn't truly unlimited: Verizon has been known to cut people off who are transferring what the carrier sees as too much data—for instance, with multi-day BitTorrent sessions).

With the UM150 you'll definitely save money, but you won't get top performance. We tested the device against three other Verizon Wireless modems over a three-day period in New York and New Jersey. On download tests, the UM150 averaged third of four. But more important, it almost never topped the crowd: It got the top result on only 3 out of 40 download tests. Oddly, it did have the highest peak speeds; they just didn't happen very often: Download speeds averaged 670 Kbps with peaks of 1.77 Mbps. The UM150 came in third on upload speed tests, with average speeds of 403 Kbps and peaks of 817 Kbps.

The UM150 isn't a bad modem. None of the modems we tested here are. The difference between the UM150's average speed and that of our download leader, the Sierra Wireless AirCard 595U is only 13 percent. So that makes the UM150 a good choice for the budget-minded. Still, if you can afford them, we'd recommend the more compact and elegant Verizon Wireless USB727 (made by Novatel Wireless) or the faster Sierra Wireless AirCard 595U.

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