intel 5350 wimax - beware engineering samples

I was about to buy one on ebay , the seller did not say it was an engineering sample, i sent him a message and he replied that it was.

I did a search on google , and the link i found says that the wimax might not work but the wifi will as the mac address might have expired.

Does anybody have any opinion on this

I found the info below, is it correct.

thanks.

http://www.buy-a-thon.com/reviews/intel-5350-wimax.htm#q5

 

There are no legitimate generic (no vendor code/bios locked) 5350 or 5150s left in the market that will work on public wimax networks, they ran out almost a year ago.

Whats left are all ES remarks, not hard to spot or verify either. Usually no mac on the sticker, never matches the actual mac or is a dummy 12345 style, back of the sticker is plain.

There may be a supply of ibm/hp locked cards available, but I sure would want a *domestic* seller guarantee.

Beware of 6250's as well, so far all being sold are obvious fakes but they might actually start spelling the words correctly (Centerino = lol) and copying the yellow backing on the labels as well.

Honestly, if you want the wimax cert to be legit on our networks (and a real MAC) you won't ever find a working one direct sold from the far east.

PS, ebay/paypal/etc will do nothing for you. Intel will also ignore you and not care at all unless you are an authorized/licensed oem, they explicitly do not support the minicards for aftermarket/integrator/end user despite the availability of drivers and software on their site.