Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG or ThinkPad 11a/b/g Wi-Fi wireless

Before I make my purchase of a X60s, I can't decide which wireless card to get. The ThinkPad (Atheros) card is more sensitive and picks up more Access Points. The Intel is $5 more, less sensitive, and doesn't pick as many Access Points as the Atheros card. The obvious card to get is the Atheros, however, I'm concerned about battery life. Will I get better battery life if I chose the Intel card? Is the difference noticable?

 

I think there is no difference. I can't remember where I read about this. Do a search perhaps?

 

I've not heared of any difference in battery life.

The biggest con with the Atheros card is probably the heat. That of course indicates that it will drain more battery. But in the countless threads about this I think I would have heared about it if it were noticeable.

The second con I think would be support. The intel one is a part of the centrino package meaning that it do probably have better support. Don't know about linux support for the atheros, might be good as well though (atheros is well known in wardriving-circles so I'd guess that it is).

That the Atheros runs hotter and that the reception is more sensitive isn't that obvious from reading threads either. The intel card has problems with some routers not following the standards correctly - but in general there haven't been any real tests to show the differences between the two.
The quality of the intel-card does seem to have varying quality though as some gets terrible results.

 

I have heard the intel gets better battery life, but it is very very slight. Having said that, contrary to most people's opinions on the net I have had nothing but headaches with Atheros wireless cars when setting up/fixing people's wireless networks, and Intels have always worked well in my experience. Honestly, what I think happened is one person said Atheros is stronger, and from now on everybody everybody is just repeating what that guy said.

 

Someone told me that Intel makes those Thinkpad wireless cards. Is this false?

 

No. The Thinkpad ones are Atheros. The Intel ones are...well...Intel.

 

Heard so much good about Thinkpads (Atheros) only bad thing is a bit extra heat, but fantastic signal. I choose Atheros.

 

All you've heard about Atheros is that it can "see" more networks. That's one metric out of dozens that need to factor in.

I choose Intel because I've personally used it in several notebooks and I know it works flawlessly with just Microsoft Networking controlling it. The signal is very strong for me as well....I could pick up a network 10 floors below me at work which is more range than I'd ever need.

 

I switched out the intel for the thinkpad and it was a world of a diffrence.

 

My T60 has a ThinkPad wireless card, but it never works. I tried different drivers but this didn't help. There might be something wrong with the hardware. Looks like I need to contact Lenovo to fix this.