Wireless card difference?

I probably should have asked this earlier..but is there a significant difference between the Dell Wireless 1490 802.11a/g Mini Card and Intel Pro/Wireless 3945 802.11a/b/g Mini Card? I went with the dell wireless mini card for my latitude d620 even though the pro was just $10 more...and I'm hoping that wasn't a big mistake on my part?

Edit: just found this off of the dell faq:

What is the difference between Intel Pro wireless and Dell wireless options?
"There is no difference between the Intel Pro wireless cards and the Dell wireless cards other than manufacturer. Dell wireless cards have been through extensive testing in order to ensure compatibility with other Dell wireless products."

I hope that's right!

 

Well , from what I've heard the major difference is that
dell wireless has a weaker signal comparing to intel PRO so
the conclusion is
GET THE INTEL WIRELESS CARD;DEFINITELY WORTH IT

 

some people like the dell software i have heard but i hate it, i like the intel software alot better. And yeah the intel i have heard too has better signal.
But if you have already ordered it then alwell, the dell one works just fine

 

I don't know about the intel card. Maybe the 2200 was just the worst in the bunch, but I've been tempted to by Atheros or buy a new dell card and try it out.

 

My 6400 has an Intel card and my lady's 1300 has a Dell card and there are no problems or noticeable differences in performance between either of them.

 

I am not sure who makes the Dell cards, but the Intel cards are known to be more power efficent and thus give better battery life than other makes.

 

I get a stronger signal with intel I also like the interface better

 

thanks everyone Now I'm kinda wishing I had gone with the intel pro- but as long as I can detect a signal alongside the person next to me with an intel pro, then I'm good.

 

I personally recommend hte into pro as it has 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g support and seems like you get better battery life along with a better user interface instead of the xp wireless zero crap

 

I didn't mind the Intel PRO/Wireless software, but uninstalled it in favour of having less processes running; I think it got rid of about seven processes. I now let XP manage my Wi-Fi connection and it works just as good in my experience.

 

well I've got 2.16GHz dual core so I dont mind some extra processes running and I personally like having the intel software and I get a great signal from my 802.11g router in the other room... SO MUCH better than the PC wireles card I had in my old dell, it was such a hassel to get that thing to connect to the internet... My latitude does it instantly and automatically everytime!

 

Well, the reason I was looking at this thread was to find out the exact make + model of the 'Dell 1490 Wireless card'. I want to know for driver support reasons as I am planning to make a triple boot (WinXP, SuSe 10 Ent Desktop, Mac OS x86) system and need to try to get as close as possible to the Mac supported hardware.
So, can anyone tell me what the make, model and any other details of this card are, as I know that the Intel 2200BG has compatibility issues: ie, doesn't work (in OS X)!
Thanks.

 

After changing my router from WPA to WEP encryption, to cater for my new DS Lite (thanks Nintendo ), I've seen a drop in performance with one of our notebooks and it has an in-built Dell 1370BG wireless card, whereas mine has an Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG card and still gets an excellent signal.

I had to connect a friend's laptop to our wireless network recently and it too has an excellent signal with WEP encryption. I noticed it also has an Intel PRO/Wireless network card, a 2200BG, so maybe Dell wireless cards just don't perform as well with WEP; it's working fine with a very good signal though, but it consistently had an excellent signal with WPA.

Although the Dell wireless card isn't a show stopper, I'm glad I have an Intel one in mine.

 

the intel wlan chips (2100, 2200, 2945, 3945) are perfectly supported under Linux (even monitor and ap mode). With Dell aka Broadcom BCM4310 you might run into trouble under Linux (broadcom driver are quite new, whereas intel drivers are stable for years)

Mac OS X is not intended to run on other than Apple hardware. You won't find any Mac OS X driver for hardware Apple doesn't sell.
AFAIR the Apple Airport Extreme is also a Broadcom Chip, but I'm not sure, if it's the same as the Dell.

If you want to get Mac Support hardware, get Apple. Newer (and upcoming) Mac OS X Versions won't run on normal PC Hardware, because Apple recently made the Darwin kernel closed source.