Filling a spare mini pcie slot - x61s

I've got an empty mini pcie slot on my x61s and was wondering how to best take advantage of it. I have no interest in WWAN as my phone covers that already.

As far as I can see, my options are:

TV + FM tuner - Not too useful, but a nifty feature I guess. Though I'm sure the reception would suck with just a small aerial wire. I presume a tv tuner shouldn't require much power as it only needs to display low resolution video. Anyone got any experience?

Broadcom HD decoder - Had no idea that this existed until I saw it on ebay and can't find much information on it other that it decodes HD stuff. Seems a bit pointless on a xga screen unless it boosts battery life?

Turbo memory - That much hated thing. I'm curious what the real differences it makes are. As I understand, performance is negligible but what about boot time, user pinned apps and battery life?

So does anyone have any input on what to stick in there for maximum benefit?

 

GPS? mini SSD?

 

GPS is also served by my phone. Forgot to mention that.

Are the mini SSDs really worth it? They seem to cost as much as a full fledged SSD, or near enough yet offer significantly less performance.

 

A significant number of the SSDs are not making full use of pcie interface and are actually little better than a decent SDHC hard (eg Sandisc Extreme III/IV) or a decent USB flash stick.

Plus, they are typically MLC rather than SLC; which means more likelihood of errors and lower life expectancy.

Finally, as far as booting from one; say you did find one that utilized the pcie interface fully and was SLC based, firstly it would cost a small fortune and secondly, a large number of laptops are simply not able to boot from it anyway.

In my honest opinion there are really only two good options for this port.

1. Mobile broadband device; though a large number of these are still for PCMCIA instead of expresscard.

2. Port expansion. For example if you can find an eSATA expansion card etc.


Personally what I tend to do is use the card reader for a decent SDHC card for readyboost (if machine needs it) and just leave it in place permanently. Then use the expresscard for a port expansion device when on the move - i.e. 3 USB ports that come with this machine are simply not enough. When at home this is not necessary of course as I'd always recommend some form of docking station, even if it is only a 7-8 port usb hub.
Regards

 

Indeed, this is what I meant. The x61s card slot is cardbus :9

 

are you sure? it is supposed to be an expresscard slot.

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3800

I haven't put anything in mine yet but contemplated something for expresscard.

*edit*

Never mind, Mine has the pc card slot also.