I bought two of these SMC2632W cards along with the SMC700AWBR Wireless Barricade Router. My intent was to share my dial-up modem connection between my Fujitsu Lifebook C-6577 laptop and my 10-year-old daughter's Sony VAIO PCG-FX210 laptop. (I have ordered DSL, but don't have it yet.)I didn't get the system working wirelessly with my Fujitsu laptop at first (I'm a software developer, not a hardware person), so I hard-wired my laptop to the router to get the router and modem set up and working. (I'll write a review of the router -- if I remember -- once I get DSL.)
UPDATE: I got DSL, and everything still works fine.
I then put this PC card in my daughter's Sony laptop, and it worked after installing the drivers and configuring the network settings. The router is in the back of our 2000+ square foot house, and she can use her computer in the front of the house with no problem (through two walls on a diagonal).
While installing the drivers, I noticed a Windows CE directoy on the driver diskette, and wondered if my other PC would work in my Compaq iPAQ with the dual PC card sleeve. I copied the CAB file to my iPAQ, double-clicked on it, and the software installed. I can now use my iPAQ around the house to wirelessly surf the Web and chat on AOL Instant Messenger.
As a caveat, I mentioned I'm not a hardware person, so I haven't done any speed testing. Things seem OK to me, but I don't know what kind of throughput I'm getting.
Because installing and configuring the card was so easy with the Sony laptop, and because it all seems to work well, I give this five stars. Because I got the extra capability of Windows CE, I'd give it another 1/2 star, if possible. :-)
The one downside with using this card on Windows CE is the settings application. First, I can't seem to find it again (probably my fault). Second, it seems to have been developed for Handheld PCs, not Pocket PCs, so the settings screen gets truncated on the right with no possibility to scroll. That's why it only gets an extra 1/2 star instead of an extra full star.
UPDATE: I found the settings application again, and created a shortcut for it so I can find it more easily. I also found that I can see the rest of the dialog by moving the dialog's main window around. I hadn't tried that before because most Pocket PC applications seem to be full-screen and not movable.
(NOTE: The driver diskette also seems to include Linux drivers, but I don't have a Linux system, so haven't tested this.)
Works right out of the box!, August 20, 2001