5. Wireless Adapters

802.11b adapters have continued to come down in price and have become pretty much commodity products, with little to differentiate one from another. One recent product that does have a different twist to it is Asante's AL1511 AeroLAN XWing Wireless PC Card. Its simple, but effective, difference is the use of two flip-up antennas to improve the speed vs. range and maximum range of the client using the card.

Asante FriendlyNET AeroLAN AL1511 Wireless PCMCIA Adapter

The real news, however, is in dual-band CardBus adapters. These relatively new products will allow you to connect your notebook to both 802.11a or 802.11b networks, for about the same, or in some cases, less than the going rate for 802.11a-only adapters! The even nicer thing about these cards is that my testing of NETGEAR's WAB501 showed excellent 802.11b performance... better than any 802.11b-only card I'd ever seen! It looks like NETGEAR's card is selling for about $100, with the SMC2335W, ORINOCO 802.11a/b Combo Card-Gold, and Linksys WPC51AB also available at somewhat higher prices.

You also may find some real bargains in 802.11a-only Cardbus adapters, as manufacturers clear the shelves for dual-band products. I found D-Link's DWL-A650 for as low as $68 on-line, and NETGEAR's HA501 for about $80.