What to do with the Flybook ExpressCard slot?

The Flybook V5 has a ExpressCard 54 slot. What’s that, you ask? ExpressCard.org has everything you would want to know about ExpressCards. (fyi, 34 and 54 refer to the mm in width – both modules are 75mm long).

Fellow Flybooker Rob suggested you might be able to put a better video card in the slot if you wanted a better gaming machine. Out of curiosity (I’m not really an avid gamer) I looked around. While I couldn’t find a video card (?), I did find some other interesting ExpressCard options.

So here is a round-up of some other possibilities. Please note, I haven’t tried *any* of these  – my ExpressCard slot is empty – so I’m not guaranteeing that any will actually *work* in the Flybook. Nor am I guaranteeing any of the pricing or availability – this is all just food for thought.

Sound Blaster X-Fi Extreme Audio.  $66 from Dell

eSATA card (allows you to transfer at speeds of 3 Gigabits per second to a SATA drive).  $75 from Sewell Direct

AVerMedia AVerTV Express MCE – TV tuner / video input adapter. $118 from Amazon
  or
HP has a tv tuner kit that does both analog and digital that you can get on ebay for about $45 with shipping.

Belkin’s really Mac-looking High-Speed Docking Station –  it’s sold out on Belkin’s site, but you can get it for $169 from Dell
(Per the website: Note: The Windows Vista operating system does not currently support two WDDM graphics drivers operating concurrently. This prevents USB and ExpressCard video docks from being able to support the Aero interface)

Newton Peripherals’s Mogo Mouse (bluetooth mice housed and recharged in the ExpressCard slot). The “Mogo Mouse X54 Wireless Mouse And Media Remote” and the “MoGo Mouse – X54 Pro – Wireless Mouse And Presenter” are available for $79.99 from TigerDirect (the Pro is on pre-order).

Koutech IO-RC1800 18-in-1 Fit ExpressCard 34/54 slot Multi-Format ExpressCard Reader (like that isn’t a mouthful) for $19.99 from Newegg

Oh, by the way, per the ExpressCard.org site, you aren’t limited to 54 cards – you can use the 34’s as well: “The slot for the ExpressCard/54 module also supports an ExpressCard/34 device. The wide slot features a novel guidance mechanism that steers ExpressCard/34 modules into the connector socket.”