AGainst my better judgement, I’m going to try one of these out. D-link has actually been OK for me, but Adrian has had terrible experiences. OTOH, I have a 24-port D-link switch at home and it seems fine. It does have nasty interference problems because of Super-G, but what the heck, give it a try. Supposed to have better range characteristics. Here are some reviews that basically tell me nothing except the hint that even with identical chipsets (both the Netgear and D-link use the Atheros 5002), you can get incredible range differences.
* “PC Mag UK”:http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/networking/0,39023965,39118932,00.htm. LIked it. Has a 3-year warranty too.
* Pyroport.com”:http://www.pyroport.com/reviews/1.shtml. NOt a deep review, more like a feature check.
* “ZD Net”:http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/D_Link_DI_624_AirPlus_Xtreme_G_router/4505-3319_16-20817312.html. Duplicate of PC Mag reviews, but the user comments don’t seem pollute unlike CNet’s.
For the equivalent card, called the DWL-G650 there don’t seem to be many reviews:
* “Cnet Asia”:http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/D_Link_DWL_G650_AirPlus_Xtreme_G_Wireless_CardBus_Adapter/4505-3251_16-20817314.html.
* “Dev Hardware”:http://forums.devhardware.com/showthread.php?threadid=16056&s=ea25b63548cadd67d5b6e64a556d096d folks are pulling their hair out trying to get it to work at all.
Now for the Netgear equivalents. First, they are much more expensive. Effective price of D-link is just $50 for the router and $35 for the card! But, here are the reviews WG511T was much faster over the range than the D-link
“ZDNet”:http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/Netgear_WG511T_108Mbps_wireless_PC_Card/4505-3251_16-30535788.html. Their CNet performance test found:
| Router | Mixed B/G (5ft) | G or Super G (5ft) | G/Super G (100 ft) |
| Netgear WG511T | 12.5Mbps | 47.1Mbps | 25Mbps |
| US Robotics USR5410g | 17Mbps | 28.6Mpbs | 8Mbps |
| Sony PCWA-C300S | 13.9 | 24.2 | 7 |
| Actiontec | 11 | 23.5 | 7 |
| Buffalo Airstation Adapter-G | 7.9 | 19.6 | 7 |
| Linksys WPC54G | 6.7 | 15.6 | 1 |
THe equivalent router is the Netgear WGT624 which “ZDNet loves”:http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/networking/0,39023965,39118460,00.htm but users rating don’t like it much.
“Wi-Fi Plane on D-link”:http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/reviews/AP/article.php/3109311 and “Netgear”:http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/reviews/AP/article.php/3109311. These results BTW differ sharply from the only other site I could find which does Wifi range testing. Here is what they found running the Chariot benchmark when using the link compression.
| Product | Mode | 10ft (Mbps) | 25 ft | 50 ft | 75ft | 100 ft | 125 ft |
| D-Link DI-624 | Super G strict | 47.03 | 38.84 | 29.83 | 39.75 | 29.63 | 25.8 |
| Netgear WFT-624 | Super G dynamic | 40.49 | 40.06 | 32.18 | 33.11 | 32.69 | 23.56 |
Other Dlnk modes tests:
| D-Link DI-624 Mode | 10 ft Mpbs |
| Super G dynamic (allos b and g clients) | 36.33 |
| Super G dynamic 11b client associated | 17.19 |
| Super G dynamic 11b client running | 8.23 for 11g, 2.83 11b |
| Super G no turbo (disables bonding) | 23.11 |
| Super G with WPA on | 41.83 |
Other Netgear tests:
| Mode | 10ft (Mbps) |
| WPA encryption | 32.13 |
| Standard 11g | 21.67 |
| 108 Mode with 11b associated | 14.38 |
| 108 Mode 11b running | 5.54 for 11g, 3.31 for 11b |

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