From the manufacturer: “The EZ Connect™ g 54Mbps Wireless Cardbus Adapter (SMC2835W) is another cutting edge introduction in 2.4GHz wireless communication for your laptop. Designed for both business and home users, this new adapter provides the speed, coverage, and security expected by today’s wireless users. Based on the IEEE 802.11g standard, the new EZ Connect g Wireless Cardbus Adapter is 5 times faster than the widely used 802.11b wireless networking devices and is 100% compatible with existing 802.11b wireless networks. The SMC2835W is extremely fast and can handle streaming video, multimedia and all other bandwidth-intensive applications. Wireless clients can now easily obtain instant, seamless high-speed network connection.”
Now this is the real reason wireless started taking hold – the laptop. After all, what good is a portable computer that needs to be plugged in to access the internet? All it is is more expensive and 30 pounds lighter than a desktop. Computers nowadays – especially in business – are pretty useless without a ‘net connection. Without email modern business wouldn’t be modern business. For home users it’s the same dilemma, how can you work peacefully on the porch or in bed when you have to plug into your home network?
The SMC box is pretty sparse – just the card itself, some drivers, and an install guide that I didn’t read (…put card in PCMCIA slot, do we really need to be told this?). Taking a closer look at the card you can see there’s two little LEDs, one that signifies a connection and another for link activity.
Installation
Installation went easily enough – just pop it in! After powering on the PC it detected an ‘Unknown Network Device’, but the driver install takes care of that. I downloaded the latest drivers off the SMC website, and I recommend anyone else do the same. Driver CD’s are often out of date by the time you get the product home. The total install time was about fifteen minutes. As you can see in the following pics the part of the card that protrudes from the side of the laptop has a pretty small profile. I found it didn’t get in the way at all.
