Need help with wireless adapters

[eshy99]

Hey guys,

I'm new here, so go easy on me. I'd really appreciate any help you guys can give me with my situation.

Basically, I'm going up to school soon, and will need to connect to a wireless network. Niether my desktop nor my laptop have wireless capabilities. So what I thought was, rather than getting a card for my PC and another card for my notebook, I'd just get one of those USB adapters. That way, I can just plug it in to the USB port of either system when I want to connect to the internet.

The thing is, although I'm good with computers and everything, I'm not too keen on the wireless stuff (as you can tell, since I niether of my systems are wireless-enabled). Are there any drawbacks to having a USB adapter, rather than the PCI or PCMIA cards? Which is better - the USB sticks (like the BELKIN Wireless G USB Network Adapter) or the USB adapters that look more like routers, with antennas and everything (like the Linksys WUSB54GS)? Which setup will give me the best download speeds? Also, which standard should I go with? 802.11g seems to be the best, and most of these are backwards compliant with a and b, but with n and i coming out and everything, I'm not sure what to do. Do you think this is even the best solution?

I'm really grateful for any help you can give me. As you can tell, I'm a little confused and frustrated. Thanks a lot, I really appreciate it.

 

[T3C]

Get a pcmcia card for your laptop, and a seperate adapter for your pc. You will get sick of forgetting, or switching your adapters all the time.

 

[intogamer]

Need to connect to a wireless connection... eh

Supr G Wireless PCI Card FTW

 

[eshy99]

Originally posted by: T3C
Get a pcmcia card for your laptop, and a seperate adapter for your pc. You will get sick of forgetting, or switching your adapters all the time.

I won't forget. More importantly, I'm getting a new laptop in the near future, so I don't want to spend money on something that I'm going to be trashing soon.

 

[Fritzo]

Yeah, go PCMCIA. USB wifi kind of stinks anyway.

 

[FoBoT]

yup, any USB wireless nic is fine. they all work fine. just get one and you can use it on both computers. you'll be good to go

 

[Captante]

If you are set on USB, most of the time you'll get better performance from one of the larger units because they have better antenna's, the downsides are that (1) you have to lug them along & (2) they suck more battery power then the thumb-drive sized units.
The advantages of the smaller units are (obviously) size & less battery use, but the biggest disadvantage is that when installed directly into a USB port, its very easy to damage both the adapter & in particular the USB port itself by bumping the adapter into somthing.

Really your best bet by far is to just get a cheap Linksys 802.11g PCI card for your desktop & a PCMCIA card for your laptop ... it will cost you more, but its well worth it.