Hardly any wireless adapter reviews

[It's Not Lupus]

Why do routers get reviewed but adapters never?

 

[s44]

Because wifi should really be for devices with built-in adapters (phones, tablets, laptops). Fixed reception locations are generally better off wired... or with a bridge.

 

[JackMDS]

The short answer. What is the point to review Junk.

The long answer.

The card per-se is a small variable in the Big Picture of Wireless Performance

The main difficulty is the Environment. Environmental issues are so varied and important that there is No real value to test card performance in a standard Faraday cage.

In general.

I think that people do not realize that the Antenna of a Wireless card and its location is just as important (and in many cases even more) than the Wireless card per-se.

Consumers Wireless’ card chipsets come from five manufacturers and all the regualr hardware manufacturers get from them the chipset and basic drivers for their Wireless cards (Laptops and Desktops).

There can be day and night differences in the Wireless performance of Laptops that have the same Wireless cards. The One with better designed and placed Antenna will perform much better in term of coverage and bandwidth. As an example MacBook Pros Wireless tend to be better when Win 7 is used in Booth camp installation as compare to other Laptops with the same Broadcom or Atheros chipsets.

Many other laptops (Dell, HP, Acer, Lenovo etc.) use the same Wireless cards and Win 7 as OS. Never the less, their performance is inferior to the MacBooks because of careless design around the same card and Driverss.

As for desktop, the main differences are in the Quality of the Antenna and its location.

Many PCI Wireless cards end up with little antennae stuck low behind the tower's metal back panel and the wall, thus the puny 33mW signal is grossly suppressed.

USB (I am talking about full size USB Module with an external Antenna not a
"silly" Dongle/Nano) can be used with USB extension cord and put high above the system thus provides better propagation, or use a PCI card that it’s Antenna is extended via short coax.

Currently my choices are.

For USB - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833166046

For PCIe - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833106135
Both are Dual Band.

Some people ask, what about 802.11ac?

Right Now the overall demand in the main stream market for add-on 802.11ac is almost No existing and the advantages of 801211ac over regular Dual band are minuscule. As

However for people who suffer from the psychological condition known as “Early Adopters”.

One can try this - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833106192

Why Intel. Thier Chipset are among the few top and they yend to pat attention to Drivers.

But what is more important are the Antennae they they provide withe the cars that are linked above.

 

[Spineshank]

Years ago I could see this being needed. Especially when dealing with Windows driver issues on XP/Vista. But not now.

 

[alkemyst]

Because wifi should really be for devices with built-in adapters (phones, tablets, laptops). Fixed reception locations are generally better off wired... or with a bridge.

No...network design philosophy is calling for only wiring to the backbone soon.

 

[MadScientist]

There are some wireless adapter reviews here: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/

I've been using this adapter in my HTPC for about a 2 years now with Win 7 and Win 8.1: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833315096

Cheap and works well with the detachable antenna.

 

[Fardringle]

No...network design philosophy is calling for only wiring to the backbone soon.

For home/casual users? Sure.
For business, particularly with systems that need fast and reliable connections? Not for a very long time (if ever).

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Another vote for intel wireless adapters, once you go intel, you never go back.

 

[azazel1024]

I am also a big fan of Intel wireless (and wired) adapters.

As for why, Jack mentioned it. Soooooo many variables.

I have seen one adapter in one laptop hit, lets call it 180Mbps on n300 and the EXACT same adapter stuck in a different laptop struggled to hit 140Mbps.

Routers/APs are easier to test because it is fixed hardware. Adapters have to rely too much on the host machines. Even PCI-e and USB adapters have to deal with differing condtions more than router testing does.

Just sooooo many variables. I already see vastly different performance between testing of wireless routers and site specific performance, as well as the clients used in testing versus real world clients used.