What is a good inexpensive wireless card?

[glen]

A friend of mine wants a wireless card so she can use her laptop at wireless location around town.
Does she need "G" for the most compatibility?

 

[Slick5150]

Not really. Most public WI-FI locations are B only, and even if they are G, a B card could still work with it (since B & G are compatible with each other).

So if she just wants something as cheap as possible, just get a B card and it should work fine.

 

[glen]

Originally posted by: PinwiZ
Not really. Most public WI-FI locations are B only, and even if they are G, a B card could still work with it (since B & G are compatible with each other).

So if she just wants something as cheap as possible, just get a B card and it should work fine.

Thank you.
Someoen once told me that it is generally best to just go with Linksys.
That they have the least headaches etc...
Since, neither of us is technically savy, do you agree that we ought to just get the linksys card?

 

[mamisano]

Not sure it really matters what brand these days. I would just look for a sale and pick one up locally. They are going for $9.99 at times. I know that Microsoft is getting out of the wireless hardware market and you can find sales for their discontinued products at various office supply stores, Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. They might have the easiest to install card being they are Microsoft

I have an SMC card and have had some driver issues crop up from time to time, so be wary of them.

Good luck!

 

[3chordcharlie]

mamisamo - did you ever sort out your driver issues with the SMC card?

I have one that has frequent dropouts, which I was blaming on heat from the location of the pcmcia slots near the CPU. Once the card drops out, it rarely resumes working without a reboot.

just wondering if there's a solution - mine's an 11mbps b-only card.

 

[Lonyo]

I got a D-Link Wireless Extreme G that was easy to work with and set up, not to extusive either (doesn't stick out too far).
There might be a lower end (B only) model that would be worth it. Haven't had any problems so far.

 

[mamisano]

Charlie,
Driver issues are with an 11/22 card. If you remove the card and re-install Windows asks for the driver CD....every time. When you go to update the drivers or install updated drivers from scratch, you need the driver CD for some reason. Really annoying. Other than that it works fine as intended.

Picked up a USR G-Turbo (108mb) card/router combo to replace the SMC combo. Basically not worth the money at the time so I sold it off. You only really utilize G speeds when transferring files within the network, otherwise it is a waste for the Internet.

 

[Supermercado]

I don't know that brands are such a big deal anymore these days. I've never had any of the "high end" networking equipment like Linksys. I've had a D-Link router, a Netgear router, and a Netgear 802.11b router. I've not had any problems with any of them and the only reason I've had so many is because I needed them at home, at school, and then I got the wireless one just a couple weeks ago when Staples had it for $9.99 after rebate.

 

[Lothar1974]

I use to be a Linksys fan but after trying their wireless products I know am a D-Link fan. My D-Link wireless card was cheap and works great.