Wirless laptop card

empirix

Lads/Lassies,

Whats the best wireless network card around.

I was offered a Vellim wirless card for €50 in Compustore

Spec: 2.4ghz
8.0211 bits
11mbits per sec.

Is this any good.
If anybody can point me in the direction of a good card i would much appreciate it.

Thanx

empirix

lads - anybody know anything about this?

unkel

Depends on what you want to use it for. First you need to establish this.

Originally posted by empirix
8.0211 bits

That actually refers to the standard used and should read 802.11 b
This means a max speed of 11Mbps, in practice about half that. This is fine for the web and light general use, but is not sufficient in an office environment. For that usage you should get 802.11 g which goes to 55Mbps

There are other standards, above just the most popular and compatible ones

Once you've decided on the type you want to use, read some reviews on the web about what brand to go for. Technically they are all supposed to do the same thing, it's just a matter of how easy to install, setup driver etc are

Well known makes are d-link, linksys, netgear, SMC, belkin, 3com, etc

Capt'n Midnight

I hate it when marketing gimps parrot out the 802.11b spec. all cards are not the same...

Depends on the OS used and if you have any special needs. - external connectors can be handy if you want to go long distance later. Windows Xp/2K will have drivers supplied. With linux you might be better off staying with more common chipsets.

11Mbs - under ideal conditions , when it's worse they drop back to 5.5/2/1MBs
you can get faster cards - but again when conditions are not ideal they drop to about the same speeds as the 11Mb cards - bit like having a 56K or a 33.6K modem on a paired eircom line that won't even support a 28.8K modem.

tuxy

well sure kind of crappy for sharing files but i find it great for sharing a adsl connection