Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

chasg · 03:26 PM

Hi All,

I have a friend who is considering an upgrade from a TiBook to a MacBook and she is concerned about airport performance.

The TiBook doesn't have all that great a range, and she was wondering if the MacBook is better able to connect to an adsl modem/wifi hub (it's a "g" hub from netgear, no special range extension).

The issue is one of her being able to work further away from the hub than she can now with the TiBook. We're talking one extra wall and 3 metres, the TiBook completely loses the signal with this extra distance, and I'd like to be able to tell her that the MacBook has _theoretically_ better performance, if it does work with this further distance and through this wall, great :-)

Alternatively, perhaps someone can recommend to me a wifi signal booster (I've seen them on the shelves), or perhaps a more powerful adsl modem/wifi hub?

Chas

ghporter · Oct 6, 2006, 03:35 PM

The TiBook's antenna system cannot compare to other wireless laptops'. The titanium case, and the antenna location and orientation made for a very bad combination; it did not do well at all. On the other hand, I'm typing this on my new MacBook PRO about 2/3 of the house away from the access point, and I've lost only one bar on my AirPort indicator. That's on the MBP; the MacBook, with its plastic case, will probably do even better.

osiris · Oct 6, 2006, 03:39 PM

I can affirm that without a doubt. The TI's airport reception was miserable at best. Any new portable from Apple will outshine the TI, I wouldn't be concerned.

chasg · Oct 6, 2006, 03:39 PM

Thanks Glenn and osiris, just what I was hoping to hear (and what I already provisionally told my friend, very glad to have it confirmed :-)

Chas

trevorM · Oct 6, 2006, 03:59 PM

I went from a TiBook to a 12" Powerbook and the difference in reception was night and day.... TiBooks were dreadful.

chasg · Oct 6, 2006, 04:06 PM

Thanks for the confirmation Trevor :-)

I feel pretty silly, as I had a 12" AluBook there today, and totally forgot to test it (I'm going back tomorrow to test, and if we get bars, a MacBooking we will go!)

Chas

tooki · Oct 6, 2006, 04:57 PM

The MacBook has way better reception than the TiBooks. A friend of mine upgraded from a TiBook to a MacBook, and he remarked that suddenly he was picking up countless networks near his home that his TiBook never even saw.

tooki

chasg · Oct 7, 2006, 03:34 AM

Thanks tooki :-)

Chas

amazing · Oct 7, 2006, 08:58 AM

If your friend's Ti is otherwise OK for her needs, the solution is to get a PMCIA wireless card. If you get one with the Broadcom chip, then the card is supported natively in OS 10.3.4 and later, with no need for extra drivers. You don't even have to take the internal card out, you just create a separate location where that card is turned off and the wireless PMCIA card is turned on.

I used both an 11-b and an 11-g card with a Ti-400 and the range for both was astounding. Plus the Buffalo 11-g card was only $25 from Target (they don't carry it anymore, sadly) and natively supported. My friend is still quite happily browsing with the Ti and Buffalo card (and doesn't need more than that.)

There's 2 reasons I'm mentioning this:

1. She'll miss the higher quality of the Ti screen, namely wider viewing angle. Also, has she seen the glossy MB screen? There's was too much glare for me, tho the glossy works well for many people.

2. If there's gonna be a new chip introduced for the MB, it'll likely be at MacWorld San Fran in only 3 months time. If buying a wireless card will tide her over till then, maybe that's something to consider. Unless she urgently needs an upgrade?

iomatic · Oct 7, 2006, 12:33 PM

There's no such thing as a PMCIA card.

ghporter · Oct 7, 2006, 05:47 PM

I just figured that was a slip of the fingers in typing, iomatic... However, the official term has been "PC Card" for quite some time. Part of that is because it's quite time consuming to say "PCMCIA" reptatedly, and partly because "personal computer" is NOT a synonym for "WIndows-based computer."

amazing · Oct 7, 2006, 07:25 PM

well, shucks, I left a letter out: they're PCMCIA cards. But you know what: I typed pmcia into a compusa search page, and it was so used to the misspelling, it just found a whole bunch of them without even asking about the spelling. Gosh, that sure is an intelligent:

Search Results for 'pcmcia'

ghporter · Oct 7, 2006, 09:16 PM

...Which is another reason the PCMCIA Association went to "PC Card" officially.

chasg · Oct 8, 2006, 02:41 AM

amazing: excellent suggestion, but the backlight on her screen is going so she certainly won't miss it (she _is_ having a problem with the smaller physical size of the MacBook screen, but she's going to get an external monitor to solve that problem for when she's in her home office. A nice compromise between portability and screen size, imho :-)

iomatic: amazing didn't make a mistake, 'cause PCMCIA actually stands for: "People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms" and amazing obviously can.

Cheers!

Chas

Velocity211 · Oct 8, 2006, 09:09 AM

Or, PCMCIA could stand for "Personal Computer Manufacturers Can't Invent Acronyms"

tooki · Oct 8, 2006, 12:48 PM

Either way, the standard has been officially called "PC Card" for a LONG time now, while the standards organization that defines the PC Card standard is the PCMCIA. The only reason the PCMCIA name sticks around is because of nerds who think they can impress people by using (or at least attempting to use) long, nerdy acronyms instead of the easy to remember and easy to say name.

Of course, a large number of current cards in that format are neither PCMCIA nor PC Card: they're CardBus, the 32-bit version of PC Card.

tooki

analogika · Oct 8, 2006, 01:34 PM

The MacBook (not MacBook Pro) screen is far superior to the Titanium Powerbooks'. It is smaller, but it has a higher resolution and much higher contrast.

ghporter · Oct 8, 2006, 04:51 PM

Originally Posted by tooki

The only reason the PCMCIA name sticks around is because of nerds who think they can impress people by using (or at least attempting to use) long, nerdy acronyms instead of the easy to remember and easy to say name.

There's another reason: some Mac users shun the idea of touching anything labeled "PC." Afraid they'll need to get shots or something, I guess. I've seen this in a couple of user groups I've sat in on. It struck me as kind of elitist from these folks...

In any case, there's no reason to call this kind of device by some name that takes three times as long to say as the standard name. I'd really like to get everybody on MacNN to drop the acronym. The standard is obsolescent anyway, with the new Express Card standard supplanting it as soon as manufacturers start putting Express Cards on the market.

Prediction: the runaway product in laptop expansion by next summer will be a PC Card-to-Express Card adapter-and that people will complain loudly that their Express Card devices are too slow when they use them in these adapters. The second part falls under the category of "Duh."