Wireless Card Buying Help

[Mr. Brass Bonanza]

I have an HP Compaq NX5000 laptop I need to buy a wireless card for. I just need the basic, as I'm just going to use it in my house and on my deck...probably won't go more than 100 feet from the router. What should I get, where should I get it, and how much should I pay for it? If there is one online and someone wants to PM me the link, that would br cool, too.

THANK YOU!!!

[Fangorn]

I'm not familiar with your laptop, but you probably have three options here.

1) If available, purchase an internal card from HP. This is probably the most expensive option

2) If you have a PCMCIA slot you can buy a PCMCIA wireless card

3) Buy a USB wireless adapter.

Options 2 & 3 are basically the same, just different formats. Cost will be roughly the same for either, but PCMCIA is often more expensive (but not necessarily better).

For basic use, you can probably get away with 802.11b only, but I'd recommend you seriously look at the 802.11g format - it's potentially faster. You need to make sure that whatever you get is compatible with your wireless router/hub.

I just did a quick scan of prices at CompUSA, and found that regular prices start at about $25 for a USB adapter and go up to just under $100. They were running a special for $9.95. For basic functionality, there isn't any reason to pay more than you have to.

At this point in time, USB wireless adapters have just about entered the 'commodity' classification - meaning they are cheap, plentiful and use identical technology.

Hope this helps.

Steve