Seen but not Announced
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: comdex, fall, 2002, report
- 1. Introduction
- 2. 802.11g
- 3. Seen but not Announced
3. Seen but not Announced
Linksys always has plenty of new stuff in their booth that they don't announce, but that is out in the open for everyone to see. Since not all of it can be found on their website, I'll give you the rundown of what I saw. Note that all prices quoted are Street.
In the 802.11a/b dual-band product line, they're adding the WPC51AB Dual-Band CardBus adapter ($130, Q1 2003). The 2003 Product Guide also shows the WMP51AB Dual-Band PCI card, but I didn't get pricing or availability.
Moving along to 802.11b products, which Linksys says will probably continue in parallel with their Wireless-G line though at least the end of 2003, they showed the BEFW11SX4 ($149, no availability given), essentially a new version of their popular BEFW11S4 wireless router that uses the new SX41 VPN-endpoint routing engine. If PowerPoint presentations are your game, you may like the upgraded version of their WPG11Wireless Presentation Gateway, the WPG12 Wireless Presentation Player ($300, Q1 2003). It has 32 MB of memory that you can upload your presentation to so that you don't have to lug a PC around. It functions as a full-featured 802.11b Access Point, too.
Rounding out the 11b products are the cute-as-a-button - or should I say dongle - WUSB12 Wireless Compact USB adapter($79, "now"), and WCF12 Wireless Compact Flash card $59, now). The WUSB12 is about the size of many of the popular USB Flash memory "keys", and has a little pop-up antenna. The WCF12 is essentially an updated version of Linksys' WCF11 CF card, but is slimmer and will fit a Type I CF slot.
Finally, in other product categories, they showed their new shot at the Network Attached Storage (NAS) market, the Just so you won't think that Linksys is the only one who shows, but doesn't tell, NETGEAR was showing their WAB102 Dual-Band Access Point, which should be introduced sometime in the next month or so. According to NETGEAR, It uses mini-PCI boards from Broadcom for 11b, and Atheros for 11a, driven by a Broadcom BCM4702 Wireless Network Processor. Pricing was not available.
