According to a PC World article, not only is built-in 802.11b wireless capability becoming the must-have feature for higher-end notebook computers, but vendors are starting to use dual-band chipsets that support both the widespread 802.11b standard and the faster 802.11a. 802.11a operates at 5GHz with maximum throughput of up to 54 mbps, compared to 802.11b’s 2.4 GHz/11 mbps. The two versions are not compatible, necessitating the use of dual-band chips, since an 802.11a-only device would find itself useless in most public hotspots. A third option, 802.11g, operates at the faster 54 mbps, but is compatible with the 11 mbps 802.11b networks, but it is still a draft standard with the IEEE, though it is anticipated that the final version will have only minor changes. Apple has already begun to include 802.11g hardware in their new notebooks, and others are sure to follow.
Apple was doing this years ago!
Did any of their iBooks not have this functionality?
802.11a has only one quality which can barely be considered redeemable: it can operate in areas where interference on 2.4GHz would make the deployment of a wireless network otherwise impossible.
Other than that, 802.11a is DVD+RW to 802.11g’s DVD-RW. Dual 802.11a/802.11b chips cost more. 802.11a’s signal is more easily deflected, leading to shorter ranges as compared to 802.11g.
It’s so sad to read about 802.11a receiving so much support when it’s clearly a pointless and inferior standard. I fail to understand why these companies aren’t building their integrated wireless support around 802.11g, when it is clearly superior in all fronts.
I also was somewhat dismayed to hear about the dual-band chips proliferating, because I think it’s silly to promote an incompatible standard when 802.11g is available. That’s the big weakness with the free market. Competition is great, but with all the people scrambling to one-up the competition, it often leads to multiple companies rushing to cobble some half-assed solution together in order to be the first to get to the end of a dead-end street.
I also think it’s pathetic that every laptop sold today doesn’t have at least the capability for built-in wireless, if not just having it built on to the motherboard. I can’t fathom having a laptop and then needing to plug it in to get on the internet. And who uses a computer these days without having it networked? I will concede that wireless networks are not secure, though. I guess that’s the only good reason to plug a laptop in these days. Now if only they’d do something about this whole battery thing. We need computers that will go for a week on a charge, or something that will gather electrons out of the air to run on. 🙂
The problem with all notebooks < 2000 EUR/$ ATM seems to be that
– they lack WLAN and Bluetooth (and a dongle in a laptop is no fun)
– they have pre-historic ports like the serial one and PS/2 that no one needs and are even dangerous if uncovered (my mom managed to destroy her notebook when she touched a parrallel port with a power connector)
– they dont have enough USB ports, some have only one (so you cant even connect a real mouse and a printer without also having a hub). I certainly don’t want a laptop with less than 3 USB ports.. 5-6 would be better if I dont hav a docking station..
– they have extremely power-hungry CPUs like P4s and Athlons, so the batteries often last only 1-2 hours
– or, alternatively, they have PowerPC CPUs and are from Apple (which makes them 50% more expensive than comparable PC models and prevents me from using my software)
Instead they often have unneccessary stuff like CDRW writers…
I received my new Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station yesterday and thought this would be a good thread to make a short report on it. My 12″ PowerBook with the Extreme AirPort card is now on its way, but I’ve haven’t received it yet.
Just as advertised, Extreme (which uses “g”) is compatible with “b”. I removed our “old” Snow Base Station and set up the new one, installed the new AirPort 3 software and everything was up and running in no time. The software has the same interface as the old, so there is no real learning curve at all.
Not having received the PowerBook yet, the big thing so far for us is the USB printer port on the new station. I plugged in our main printer, an Epson C80, installed the new AirPort software on all our other Macs, opened Print Center, chose “Add” and then, from the Printer List, chose “Rendezvous” and viola – there it was 🙂 Now what to do with all these old printers we were using??!! It’s fabulous though!
I’m planning to get a laptop soon. Life’s just getting to hectic and I need to get work done no matter where I am. Also, sitting in front of the old 17 inch CRT here does “wonders” to your eyes.
So, what I want to know is following:
Is there a vendor that ships low-end laptops with emphasis on battery life rather than speed?
I would be very happy with a low-end StrongARM or a 600mhz C3 or some Transmeta CPU. Think about it. You have a low-end laptop. If you are a sane person, you wont be playing UT2003 on it, you’ll be using it for work, browsing, e-mail, etc. Ship it with enough trinkets (at least 4xUSB, PCMCIA, 802.11b, 802.11g, 10/100mbit ethernet, perhaps Firewire) and keep it compatible with Linux and you’ve got a winner on your hands. Just need to market it as a low-power, low-heat, long-life and no-noise laptop for “network specialists and system administrators”, price it reasonably and geeks will buy it!
Just my little marketing idea. But this wont probably happen. So, anyone know any vendors of laptop parts? Might even roll my own.
and on that field Apple alos leads …
—
http://homepage.mac.com/softkid/
I have a newer Sharp laptop with built in 802.11b. It’s awesome. And the newer Intel Chips will have this built in to the microprocessor (according to the Comdex speeches). Then later supporting the later formats. For my uses 802.11b is good enough for me since I only get 1.5mbps internet from my cable modem as is anyway. Peace!
bullethead
Funny there is this discussion here about Wireless!
Just last night we setup the G4 Cube as a base station for the wireless network for our laptops here at home (we already have a NAT/router server running FreeBSD, but this is a wired network).
JBQ’s laptop worked fine (Win2k), but mine (Win98) had a few problems (the wireless cards we used are identical). I had to find the drivers, which was a pain, and do a few setups “manually” under Win98 (and I even crashed Win98 once when I removed the wireless card without disabling it first
). But at the end both worked, and it was cool. Too bad my laptop’s battery is dead for 2 years now, so I can never be “truly” wireless (I always need to use the power cord). 
I also think it’s pathetic that every laptop sold today doesn’t have at least the capability for built-in wireless,
Why does it *have* to be built in? If you need wireless – just plug in a PCMCIA wireless ethernet card. Works great for my 5+ yr old Toshiba.
I agree that on a modern system, I’d prefer not to tie up a PCMCIA slot with wireless since I *PLAN* on using it, but for folks that have no need for wireless – it’s just one more thing that makes the system cost more.
>Why does it *have* to be built in?
Cause otherwise you have an ugly antenna sticking out, so it is more inconvinient when you are travelling or when you have it in a bag etc.
Eugenia, it looks like that at last you have found a purpose for your Cube :p
As Basestation, and you can even connet an USB printer to it!
@Elver Loho
From what you are wanting why not get an apple mac ibook, the cheapest one is perfect for what you want and even cheaper if you are a student.
It can even run linux but the PPC version and it has USB and firewire.
If you live in the US it is: $999 but cheaper again if you are a student. Plus it has fantasic battery life like about 5 hours and its very lightweight.
5 hours my rearend, 3 to 4 is the realistic. That is with using it normally with a mouse attached.
As I mentioned in the long letter I sent you as a reply, I need this laptop for work. This work involves PHP, Python and needs a network connection to upload and to test. Everything I need (X11, WindowMaker, SciTE) would run just fine on a 200mhz system. The thing is, however, that I would like a modern low-power long-life system with all the trinkets (usb, built-in 802.11b/g, firewire). What would you recommend for something like this?
NO MACS! Those things are WAY too expensive and WAY too slow.
Elver, lol, I don’t work for Apple or anything like that, but what you’re describing that you want *is* a 12″ iBook. It is low power, extremely durable, long lasting, the battery doesn’t really get 5 hours, but about 4, has usb, built in networking, wireless if you want that, and Firewire, although the iBooks just have “b” and not “g”. And they aren’t slow. And, if you get a $999 model and max out the RAM at 640 MB, it’s $1,200. The thing is, I don’t know where you’re going to get all you describe you want without paying more than that.
I’ll have to second that last post. The 800 MHz ibook is not fast by any means, but it’s not slow by laptop standards. You can run Linux on it very nicely if you don’t like OSX, and it has all the accutrements, except for no PC card slot. But it does have built in 802.11b, which is what most people would use a PC Carad slot for these days. I think is has 2 usb ports, which isn’t 3, I know. I think that some Sony Vaios had 3 usb ports, including one mini-usb port with a dongle.
An older Vaio will have USB and Firewire ports, PCMCIA, and the slim ones (505) only have the legacy ports on a mini-dock. Problem with Vaios, very poor battery life. I think that’s why people are suggesting the ibook. The G3 sips the power, while the Pentiums gulp it, and the Sonys are particularly problematic withthe battery life, though the 505s have an optional, expensive extra-power battery that will give you 4 hours or so.
With PDAs doing well over 6 hours, is there ANY laptop, currently being actively produced, that can go over 6 or 7 hours?
The last line should read
maximum throughput of up to 54 Mbps, compared to 802.11b’s 2.4 GHz/11 Mbps
Mbps not mbps, a simple mistake.
Megabits not millibits.
Elver, that’s one other reason I spoke of the iBook. Like David said, the G3 is low power enough to get 4 hours out of it. There may be a PC laptop that gets great battery time, but I don’t know of any that would get 6-7 hours.
I have any heard many laptops that fit that description, but I’m only going to recommend you something that I actually tried.
12.1″ iBook. Macs may be slow, but as you said, you don’t need something fast. Advantages is that it has a long battery life, but you need to use OS X to take advantage of it. Pretty much worth the price.
Vaio PCG-R505DL, which has a longer battery life than iBook, or so I heard. But again, to take advantage of that, you need to use Windows XP :-). Oh the misery of a Linux laptop user.
Another recommendation is ThinkPad X30, it has far more battery life than the other two, but the keyboard is annoying for those used to desktop keyboards, IMHO. You may also want to consider putting some thing between the laptop and your laptop to prevent infetility (heat :-).
Now, the prices depend on the configuration. All are over $1000, and less than $1500, rough calculations from Malaysian street price to US dollars. Maybe you could search http://Froogle.google.com (or do OSNews a favour and use osnews.pricegrabber.com), you probably would find them there.
The IBM is the most expensive, but to me, most bang for the buck. Go to the store, check it out, pick out which you like.
That Vaoi is a subnotebook.
Anyway, if you want extreme battery power, you can always use one of those Crusoe-powered laptops. And they are expensive (around $2000 to $2500). And all of them are small. Anyway here are the recommendations for those:
Lifebook P2110
Compaq Evo Tablet PC (you are mostly wasting your money on this one because most of the features are XP-only and I doubt would appeal to you).
That Vaoi (model number?) (much much much smaller than that Lifebook, keyboard unbearable).
But on the bright side, these stuff have more than 6 hours of battery life.
Like I said in the message above, there is. But except PDA sizes :-).
IIRC, the 14″ iBook sports 6 hours of batterylife, but since that is from the spec Apple provides, you will probably not get more than 5 out of it. Still, thats not too shabby. Nothing beats my Psion PDA though, with 24+ hours of battery life, on two AA cells!
Just too bad it does not have a complete development platform for web stuff… :/
Many modern laptops can give you quite a long time to work – just add the second battery. The problem I see is that I want a good screen and a good size keyboard – and so all those 12″ are not really useful. Remember, your CPU speed is not as important as your eyes. And when you have 15-16″ active matrix LCD your battery won’t last so long. And it became quite heavy too. Subnotebooks may be great to check your email but for coding forget it.
What I want is an adapter that would suck those useless 5GHz radio waves and charge my battery.
Eugenia, I have a small question of wireless stuff in the house – do you get network hiccups when microwave is on ? or other appliancies?
And you really surprised me – you got wireless ethernet but too lazy to get a new battery ? C’mon, check ebay.