NetGear SuperG Wireless Router and Wireless PC Card Review (Page 1 of 8 )
Anyone that doesn’t live in a studio flat but does have a network at home needs to think about the benefits of using wireless technology to link their computers. Some manufacturers make buying a wireless setup easy by packaging a wireless router and cards together. Dan Wellman reviews one of these packages from Netgear, which includes the DG834GT SuperG Wireless Router and the WG511T Wireless Card.
Go Wireless: NetGear SuperG Wireless Router (DG834GT) & Wireless PC Card (WG511T)
The most obvious benefit to going wireless is of course that there aren’t unsightly connection wires running around your house. The fact that you no longer need these when moving to wireless however is not the only benefit to be gained from making the switch; administrating the growth of your home network may turn out to be far easier if you are wireless rather than wired. To add devices to your wired network, you may need to buy additional cabling, a switch or router depending on how many devices you already have on the network, an additional adapter, and if the device is in a different room and you don’t feel up to drilling, there is always the additional cost of a telecommunications installation engineer. If however you already have a wireless network and you decide to buy, say, a laptop, all you need buy is a compatible wireless PCMCIA card.
Potentially, the biggest drawback to moving over to wireless is the possible drop in speed; a wired network has the capability to transfer data at a rate of 1000Mbps, whereas the quickest current wireless technology is 125Mbps. For the average home user however, the standard networking hardware components are usually 10/100, so the wireless option can actually be slightly faster in optimum conditions. For business users, it may not be fast enough. But for home-based consumers that simply want to be able to connect to the internet from their favourite armchair, wireless is more than adequate.
Compatible wireless products can often purchased together as a package, offering you everything you may need to upgrade or setup a simple network. One package is the Netgear DG834GT wireless ADSL router and the WG511T wireless PC card, both of which I recently purchased at a special price together, and both of which will be reviewed in this article.
Next: Unpacking the Netgear Equipment >>
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