EnGenius 200mW PCMCIA Card 2511CDPLUS W/ INTERNAL ANT Reviews
Product: EnGenius 200mW PCMCIA Card 2511CDPLUS W/ INTERNAL ANT
From: jeff keenan
Date: Monday 17 November, 2003
Review:
We have been testing this card for several weeks now with very good results.
Distance:
When compared to the leading cards from Cisco or Orinoco the range on the 2511-cd-plus is much better we are getting over twice the distance and a cleaner signal because it has the highest receive sensitivity of any card on the market today. If you compare the 2511-cd-plus to any consumer grade card such as linksys, dlink, netgear etc you will get many times the distance. Compared to any 802.11G card which can only have 125mW of output power the 2511-cd-plus card has 200mW so again the distance is several times greater.
Speed:
We have also done bandwidth testing with Netiq Chariot and have found that the bandwidth is consistently higher on the 2511-cd-plus over other leading 802.11b and even 802.11g cards at the same distance. Because the transmit speed of a 802.11g network drops off quickly as distance increases you will get higher speed with the 2511-cd-plus after about 100feet from your access point.
Drivers:
The 251-cd-plus ship with windows drivers and they work well. The windows driver is simple to configure and allows multiple profiles, WEP, power save. There is a signal strength meter that also includes a link quality indicator. Linux support is very good via the wlan-ng and host-ap drivers. Using the host-ap driver you can configure a linux computer as a fully functioning access point. You can operate up to 3 cards in one machine to provide 3 channel coverage.
Conclusion:
In summary this is currently the best 802.11 card on the market for distance quality and even speed in most real world situations. 802.11g and 802.11a cards will provide more bandwidth at very close range but to be truly mobile you require a high power card like the 2511-cd-plus with good receive sensitivity.
