| Netgear MA701 802.11b Wireless Compact Flash Adapter |
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Model: MA701NA
Brand: Netgear
Manufacturer: Netgear
Average Rating: 
(submit your review here)
Total Reviews: 17
Operating system: Microsoft Windows CE 2.11
Form factor: Plug-in module
Hardware platform: PC
Data link protocol: IEEE 802.11b
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| Features: |
Reliable 40/64 and 128-bit WEP encryption
Roam between 2.4 GHz 802.11b Access Points without resetting or reconfiguring
Works with Pocket PC or other Windows CE-based mobile computers
Works with both Type I and Type II card slots
Supports Ad-hoc and Infrastructure modes |
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| Description: |
| If you're a mobile professional using a Pocket PC or other Windows CE-based mobile computer, NETGEAR's MA701 Compact Flash Card gives handheld devices a new level of connectivity. Send and receive e-mail, synchronize with your notebook computer, and browse the Internet from the palm of your hand. The MA701 provides connectivity to enterprise and public IEEE 802.11b wireless LAN systems for access to the Internet, e-mail and corporate servers. It enables you to work wherever you are most productive - in a conference room, on the road, in a coffee shop, a hotel or at the airport. Versatile design supports Pocket or Handheld PCs with Windows CE 2.11, 3.0 or higher with either Type I or Type II card slot. |
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| User Reviews (17 total): |
Page 1 of Total 1 Pages
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broke and broke again, April 13, 2004
By unknown
I bought this card in early November, the first one quit working within a month, Netgear warrantied it, but now 3 and a half months later the new card is having the same problem. I expect it to quit working altogether soon. I know it is the card not my pda because I also have a CF GPS that has never given me a problem. I won't buy Netgear again when I replace this card.
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NETGEAR MA701 802.11b Wireless Compact Flash card on your Z, January 8, 2004
By mrdx (NY)
I have to say that if you are out there for a compact flash wireless network card and have a Linux PDA such as Sharp Zaurus SL5x00 Personal Mobile Tool, then this card may just be what you are looking for. This battery hungry monster will work right out of the box without any need for additional software or drivers and what not. If all you care about is compatibility this card will eat-u your batteries in about 4 hours(fully charged brand new Sharp Zaurus). It makes me charge my Z every 4 hours or so. I usually charge my Z every couple of days or so. Not when on the network. So. MA701 does not use a Prism2 chipset and eats up the battery on my PDA if it was honey to mad Grisly Bear. My assumption is that this card is designed for a laptop user with more powerful batteries then PDA user is able to have but other then battery life while using this card I am very pleased with its performance and can't say that it's a bad product. So if you got extra batteries and need Linux compatibility on your Z this is the card that will allow you to have your Instant Messaging and all the Internet you can allow yourself to grasp with your mobile, or personal mobile pc.
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Works great!, September 25, 2003
By Pete Paxton (Portland)
I've been using this card for about a year now and haven't ever had any problems with it. First used it with my Audiovox Maestro and now my Dell Axim. I can go outside, to the garage, or anywhere else in the house and never lose my connection. Great product!
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Very unreliable, August 28, 2003
By James Kirk Lewis (Dunwoody, Georgia United States)
When I first got this card I had a jornada 568 (pocket pc 2002). After a few weeks of it working fine, my pda stopped recognizing it saying "Unrecognized card". I RMAed it and when I got the replacement it worked for just long enough for my warranty to run out and then did the same thing, by this time I had a pocket pc 2003 device (axim). I don't recommend this card to anyone, as 2 bad cards in a row is terribly unreliable.
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Yet Another 3-4 Month Problem, August 8, 2003
By giuseppeverde (Midwest, USA)
Bought it in February or so, and it worked great.
Until about a month ago when it (like it did for others here!) started dropping connections after about 3-6 minutes of connectivity. One has to power down the PDA for a while and then power it back up to restore connectivity.I tried to RMA it, but after being DROPPED from their 2nd-tier tech support queue for the SECOND TIME (third? I called them quite a bit) after a MULTI-HOUR WAIT, I gave up. I got an email about a week ago, and the previous tech on the food chain hadn't given them enough information (about 5 words, I kid you not!), so the whole email was worthless (the standard stuff that tier-1 tech support had gone over with me several times (and stuff I'd already done before starting on this annoying voyage of dismay)! I emailed them back giving them one week to contact me. So, down about 70 bucks or so, I've just put in an order for a Linksys (WCF12). Maybe this one will work for me. CONCLUSION: CARD DIES, TECH SUPPORT IS TERRIBLE. DO NOT BUY!! (unless you're the gambling sort).
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No Pocket PC 2003 drivers, July 31, 2003
By maxintosh (New York, NY USA)
This card is extremely flaky with Windows Mobile 2003. Watch out... there aren't any drivers available (yet). Too bad because it's (relatively) inexpensive.
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Works great - when it works, July 18, 2003
By Jason Jarvis (NC)
Originally the product was great in my dell Axim, only problem I had was that there was no support for it with a few of the common network testing apps. No big deal, I could work around that, and I didn't need to do any wardriving anyway. My first card was great, great reception at both home and office. After about 3 months the card started acting strange, dropping onnections, then the device stopped recognizing it. Netgear replaced the card without any problems (I agree with the comment that Netgear tech support needs a few more English speaking reps). The second card worked great, no problems until now, about 2 and a half months later, and it is dropping the signal again. I can sit in one spot 15 feet from the AP and watch the signal vary between 0 and 100 percent. Very frustrating. I guess it's time to call support for another card.
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Works like a champ with a Dell Axim PDA, May 17, 2003
By unknown
I was able to install the drivers with no problems on a laptop with XP. I am using a Linksys Access Point with the 128 WEP enabled. Due to the multi-vendor nature of things. I had to manually enter in the key on the PDA as opposed to letting it autogenerate a key. Not a big problem. I expected that. Works like a champ. I would recommend it as a nice inexpensive alternative considering I got mine for 30 dollars after rebates... :) Im cheap..
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Netgear MA701 802.11b Wireless Compact Flash Card, May 9, 2003
By unknown
I have installed sveral 802.11b cards in laptops and PDAs abd this by far was the easirst. Software loaded easily and the Ping and monitoring features are excellent. A fine product for the price. i use the product with both a home and enterprise wireless system.
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This card also works on my Laptop!, April 27, 2003
By Tomas (Vilnius, Lithuania)
Hi,Yes, MA701 can be used on Laptop computer (just got mine two days ago, some mingling and it was working).
What you need is PCMCIA to CF card adapter (any one of these, found in any electronics store).
Then you have to go to Netgear's website and download MA401CD drivers (those are for MA701's sister Wireless PC Card MA401). Next, unzip them into any new folder created by you.
Put in your CF card into PC Card to CF card adapter and into your laptop.
When selecting drivers, select "Manual driver selection". then select "Display list of all drivers..." in ME, or "Have Disk" in win98 (not sure about XP). Select "Network Adapters" from the left window (before that click on "all hardware" if such button is present), then select "Netgear". In the right window you will see some network adapters by Netgear. Click on "Have disk..." just below the right window, go to the folder where you unzipped
MA401CD, go to MA401, then select the folder that corresponds to your computer's OS. Then in the left window select the file and click OK button.
When they will have a window saying "This devise might not work
properly...", click on Next/OK (do not worry - it will work properly :P).
Voila, now your laptop will recognize the MA701 card as MA401, thus allowing you to connect wirelesly your laptop with the CF card. Most probably you will need to reboot your comp (if they will prompt).
After that, again go to MA401CD folder, then to MA401, then to UTILITY folder and click on Setup.exe to install Configuration Utility, similar to the one that is on your Pocket PC. After that, and after getting it configured to your taste, welcome to wireless!
Sorry that I made it so descriptive, but I believe not all of the people here are computer junkies, so tried to keep it to as much detail as possible...
All in all, I am totally happy with this card, and just changed my rating to 5 stars - plus, it saved me a bunch of money! Sincerely,
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Strange behavior, April 14, 2003
By VY (Jordan)
First, I tried the card on my iPaq3955 at Starbucks T-Mobile Hotspot. It worked, but the connection dropped about every 3 minutes. Considering the T-Mobile policy (minimum charge of 20 minutes when I was testing it), it is not appropriate.
Second, and the most disappointing, was testing with Netgear's FM-114P router/print server. The card catches the signal (I held the iPaq right next to the antenna), however, it was almost impossible to establish connection. The signal indicator was moving from 0% to 100%, but the link stayed at 0% all the time. The connection with laptop (with Netgear's PC card) was excellent all the time. It is strange because both products (the card and the router) are from the same manufacturer.
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Connection Drops, February 13, 2003
By unknown
I tryed this adaptor with multiple PDAs and multiple APs. In all cases, I have experienced sporadic droping of connections. Only fix is to repeatly restart and poweroff my pda. RMAed, hopefully it was just a bad card. It very hard to communicate with Netgears tech support. Very little English speaking reps.
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It worked.. for a while..., December 2, 2002
By unknown
I had the card for 2 months, during which I got regular usage from the card, and enjoyed wireless browsing, streaming audio/video, and email until it stopped working. NetGear support is great, except they have no idea what is wrong and have yet to provide a solution to my problem. So here I am, *** down and one dead WiFi card. I haven't tried any others, but this one worked great..
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Easy, Easy, Easy, November 26, 2002
By wlmoseley (Bakersfield, CA United States)
I received this product, took it out of the box, installed the software, and was connected to my wireless network within 5 minutes. This card works like a charm, and isn't too much of a power hog, either.
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It works on both PocketPC and PC, October 21, 2002
By ltiger (Seattle, WA United States)
I use this card on my Audiovox Maestro. It works fine and makes PDA really powerful and having a lot of fun. Potability and mobility, that is really PDA should do. But without internet connection, the functions of PDA are really limited. Another great thing is it also works on laptops if you buy a PCMCIA to CompactFlash adapter (less than $10 anywhere). Netgear doesn't provide the driver of MA701 under Windows, but you can install MA401's driver for MA701. It works perfectly. If you have both laptop and pda, it will save a lot of money to buy another PC wireless card... Problem I have met: sometimes it (used on PDA) takes long time (more than 1 min) to get connection while the signal is weak. However no such problem if used on my laptop. Overall it is a good product and highly recommended.
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Easy Setup, Marginal Range, October 9, 2002
By jcwebb82 (Florence, SC)
I purchased this card to use with my Casio E-115 PocketPC. Setup was easy despite very limited printed documentation (a .pdf manual in on the setup CD). Was able to configure this to work with a NetGear ME102 AP using 64bit WEP without difficulty and connect to internet first time. Setting up for wireless activesync between the PPC and my desktop took some detective work on the web for directions. Not really a Netgear issue, but since most CF's would be used with PPC's (I expect), some information on this aspect would be welcome -- or at least pointers to where the information can be found.
Unfortunately, I did end up returning this and the ME102 AP becuase I couldn't find a location for the AP where I was able to connect throughout my house. I have a finished attic that I use as an office where the cable modem and router are located. Putting the AP in two locations in the office left me with poor/no reception on the first floor; a first floor location for the AP gave me no reception in the office. Finally pulled another hardwired drop to a 2nd floor bedroom for the AP -- this gave marginally acceptable reception most places inside the house but could not connect from my back deck. Ran out of time on Circuit City's 14-day return policy so took them back.
I would however recommend this card due to ease of setup and price if you require limited roaming cabability.
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