These days... Is a decent USB wireless-N dongle going to be as good as an internal PCI card? I bought a Linksys AE1200 dongle and have never used N before, so I'm not really sure if that's the way to go.
Wouldn't the shared USB bus be limited with multiple devices connected? Getting a signal vs not, I'd say go with the dongle/extension and pull down the signal. But if the antennae craps out with a printer and a mouse being used, i'd say go with the pcie device. Can anyone give an estimate of devices at moderate use before a loss in signal would be seen?
Sometimes I find that the USB ones get a better signal esp when you plug them in to a USB extension cable so the antenna isn't buried behind a steel box. (IE the case)