Online Shopping Comparison

If you use an online shopping comparison service such as CNET’s, or Froogle, www.froogle.com, you’ll need to search using a more generalized term than “Wi-Fi PCMCIA” to find most of the products available.

You’ll get the most products listed at CNET if you use the search term “wireless NIC.” (“Wireless” is, of course, more general than “Wi-Fi”; NIC is short for Network Interface Card, which refers to add-on cards used both in laptops and desktop computers.) A search using the term on CNET yields over 140 products (not all of them will work with laptops, of course).

The search term “Wi-Fi Card” works best at Froogle, yielding more than 250 distinct products. However, many of these products are not “cards” at all; this search yields access points and related Wi-Fi hardware as well as the cards you are looking for.

If you just walk into your handy-dandy computer or electronics store and demand a “Wi-Fi Card,” you’ll do just fine. So my point is that if you want to spend some time comparison shopping online—either to research or purchase—it’s a great thing to do, but takes a bit more finesse.