PCMCIA Cards - which one is the best to buy?

welnik

Ive just purchased a laptop and have discovered that I can buy some card thing that will allow me to surf the net using Hotspots when Im out and about. This will be handy when I want to peruse the Forum! Havent a clue what to look for though. Anyone got any tips or experiences? Cheers Welnik

ffym

I have used two of the older 802.11g version of this for some time now and cannot fault them. Don't bother with the cheaper obsolete 802.11b cards the g ones are the minimum to go for now. (Btw b = 22mb/sec speed; g = 54mb/sec speed; in theory at least, the higher the speed the better! plus g gives greater range).
There are many other makes avalable, all are interchangeable although it's usuallly good practice to use the same make as your router.

ffym

Forgot to add the obvious welnik, quite a lot of laptops now come with "wifi" built in. If yours has, then you will not need one of these cards!

ohreally

In addition to the previous answers, 'g' is not always fastest. I have both types of cardbus card and the 'g' which is backward compatible with with the 'b' is often trailing off speedwise and often drops totaly, changing cards over to the 'b' often results in a speed increase and i get a much further range with the 'b' card than with the dual range card.
If it's of interest the 'b' card is a Netgear and cost a fair bit more than the dual card, so you maybe get what you pay for.

jjames_3

I think the problem with the b/g cards is the old one of with the b cards being older, they were more expensive and designed with a bit more care than the later and cheaper g devices which are built down to a price and inevitably quality sometimes suffers.