evening oh great QGL oracles....
i have, (through a work IT double up) received 2 x wireless hardware options.
1 x USB
1 x PCMIA (is that right? but you know...the thing that slips into the slot on your laptop) both Next G
so i was wondering is there any diff in either performance or anything else i should consider before i choose between the USB and the other?

thx all :-)

yes PCMCIA technically should be better not to mention a better fit.
Anything network and USB tends to blow..

you won't notice a difference performance wise. that being said i would choose the USB one as it gives you more options as to where you use it (desktop pc, laptop without card slot, etc)

yeah i'd go the usb too, not all laptops have pcmcia these days, specialy the smaller ones, makes no difference for speed on nextg.

i do have a slot for the pcmcia.
i'm on a Dell Latitude 630 so USB ports are also not an issue i got 4 of them.
so there's no real diff between the 2 on performance i gather?
it come down to personal pref??
i have had a USB and it does stick out a bit....wondering how the other would go....

Anything network and USB tends to blow..

We're talking wireless mobile network speeds. Unless you're pulling 30 MBytes/sec, USB won't be bottle-necking you. I don't know much about NextG but I'd say you'd be doing about 5% of that speed maximum.

Hell I was able to play TF2 on iBurst with a USB adapter a kilometre away from the tower.

i have had a USB and it does stick out a bit....wondering how the other would go....

Well the thing about internal laptop cards is that the antennas usually aren't as good since they interfere with the laptop chassis due to the close proximity.

The good thing about USB adapters is you can stick them on a long USB cable and hence place it near a window or something for better reception. Obviously this won't matter so much if you want something compact to just travel around with.

you won't notice a difference performance wise.

Realistically yes you're unlikely to notice that much performance difference.

Looking at Telstra's hardware options, it looks like you're dealing with hardware that sticks out anyway.

last edited by parabol at 21:31:15 12/Sep/08

I got a couple of the USB cards at work. Go with the USB, if you've gone to the trouble to pull out your laptop and use it remotely the USB stick won't worry you. The PCMCIA cards stick out aswell so you can't exactly leave them in when transporting the laptop. The USB can be used with any PC so it has to be a wina.

also while on the subject, wouldn't these cards/dongles be worthless? don't they come with the nextg contract or is the cheaper if you BYO?