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D-Link AirPlus DWL-650+ Wireless 22 Mbps PC Card

D-Link AirPlus DWL-650+ Wireless 22 Mbps PC Card

List Price: $59.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Glad I didn't hesitate to buy it.
Review: I almost didn't buy this, but the 22Mbps speeds (and promise of even faster speeds in this month for free) made me get it.
And now I am glad I did. I get good range in my home, fast 22Mbps speeds, well more like 5 real throughput. The WEP is perfect since I can handle anything up to 256 and the included utility works great as well. The utility has a good site survey feature that lets you connect to whatever AP that it connects by just double clicking the specific AP. Unless of course the AP has WEP then you need to know the WEP Key.

Overall I am very glad I purchased this and I've had no problems with this card in my Dell laptop I bought about a year ago.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I loved the simplified installation and it works great!
Review: Installation was a snap, install drivers, turn off PC and plug in card then boot up again, everything else is automatic.

After I was up and running I was able to see my DI-614+ in seconds. I get good enough range to roam all around my home with a good signal. The speeds of this wireless stuff is just fine for web browsing and downloading, transfering large files on the internal network is slower though, but that's expected.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Good Range and Fast Speeds
Review: I like the range on this card when coupled with the DI-614+. I haven't used it much with other major brands access points but the one I did it all worked fine. I get good range within my house and a connection in just about all of the corners of my home.

I like the utility it comes with just because of the signal strength and link quality meters. Very nice and robust.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Works great. Need to use the latest driver and firmware
Review: I had this card and the Airplus 614+. Both work very well after installing the latest driver and firmware.

Very good speed, rich set of security features, and great sensitivity for the 650+ card (much better than Netgear or Linksys card that I tested).

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: 22Mbps does make a difference! Good range too.
Review: I am going to say this again.
The 22Mbps does make a difference. I checked my throughput with NetIQ's Qcheck on my laptop (XP) with this DWL-650+ through a DI-614+ to my wired (10/100Mbps) PC (XP) and I get an average of 7.5 to 8Mbps. When I take that very same laptop to my work or a friends house that has just the standard 11Mbps Access Point and do the same setup (2 XP machines) I only get about 3.5 to 4Mbps max. The tests I've run show that XP seems to be a little better for speeds, I am not sure exactly why though.

This card, even though it can handle 22Mbps, can and does perform just fine in an 11Mbps 802.11b environment. D-Link just has a chipset that can modulate 802.11b signals more efficiently and thus gets the higher speeds than everyone else.

The range on this card is good and I've seen different results in different environments, obviously. I've been places where I have to be literally like within 50 feet from the Access point to receive a signal at all. I've been other places where I can roam as far as about 250+ feet indoor, and even further outdoors. I am not sure of all the equipment that was used in these situations, but I can only tell you my experiences and what I know.

To make a long story short I recommend this card and especially if you have or will get other D-Link equipment. Heck, even if you think you will come in contact with another 22Mbps D-Link product out there in wireless land I'd get it because even if it only one time you will see how much faster your speeds will be.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Good speed, easy to set up...
Review: This card is very easy to set up. It has decent speed so much so that I can listen to web radio on my laptop without a problem. Range wise, I have no basis of comparison. I live in a big 2 bedroom apartment, and signal is at it's max everywhere I go in the apartment, in the balcony, all through concrete walls.

Application coming with it let you tell how good the signal strength and link is.

The only complaint I might have is that I suspect the driver eats up considerable amount of memory, thus slowing down my laptop which has a mere 64 MB or ram.

nevertheless, it's a very good product IMO

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Very Straight forward and gets good range
Review: This was installed in about the time it takes to click next a couple times and reboot my laptop. Very simple and the range on this bad boy is pretty darn good. I get strong signal strength in almost every room in my home. I get some low signal strength when I stand next to our refrigerator or right next to our sliding glass window, but other than those types of things I don't notice very many low spots in our home.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Very Simple Install and Wireless Speeds are Great!
Review: All I had to do was install the drivers and then reboot with the card in the slot. I was very happy with the installation on my Dell laptop (XP with SP1). I think most hardware works best when you have SP1 installed on XP.

The speeds I am getting are in the 6-7Mbps range when coupled with my DI-614+ thanks to the TI chipset and the PBCC encoding. There are of course places where I get about 2-3 Mbps speeds, but that is what you deal with when you have wireless.

I haven't had to call into tech support and get help, but from what I hear they are good at night, but not during the day. Don't know why that is but it is.

I have also successfully connected to my friends wireless network at his house and he has a different brand Access Point. Basically all I had to do was change the SSID and WEP, it takes about 2 minutes to do.

Overall I am very happy with my purchase, err ... business decision.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: WARNING: DWL-650+ May Corrupt HP Laptop Firmware
Review: WARNING: DWL-650+ may corrupt firmware on HP laptops. The DWL-650+ software would not install on my target HP Omnibook, so I tried it on my newest HP Omnibook, which already had built-in wireless. Performance review: the DWL-650+ worked irratically. After I uninstalled the D-Link software, my laptop's internal wireless was no longer functioned. I am a SW/HW engineer, and after 20 hours of work and calls to D-Link support, I believe that the laptop's original wireless firmware has been corrupted beyond repair -- a sickning price to pay. For me, nightime D-Link support was helpful; daytime support struck me as ignorant and rude. Their email response to my request for escallation: "Dear: Valued Customer ... Agent Response: contact manufacture of computer ... Sincerely, Andre..."

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: No Linux driver available
Review: Could not find any Linux driver for the DWL-650+, it uses
a different chipset from the Prism2 chips in the older DWL-650 cards and Linksys WPC11. Do not buy if you are planning on running
Linux over wireless. I returned it and bought a Linksys WPC11, which works fine under Linux, but I only get standard 802.11b performance and not 22 Mbps


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