Questions for current S6231 owners (WiFi, battery life)

After much research and hands-on evaluation at electronics stores, I am close to purchasing an S6231. A couple of questions regarding WiFi and battery life for current S6231 owners:

1. I've tended to experience poor reception spots in locations that I frequent, and am interested in using a PCMCIA WiFi card with external antenna connection (eg, an Orinoco card along with a modest swivel antenna) for better signal gain over the laptop's built-in WiFi and antenna.
Has anyone done this successfully with the S6231 ? Anyone aware of any pitfalls - in particular, can the internal WiFi be fully disabled in favor of an alternate WiFI circuit as I propose ?

2. How do current owners feel about the sensitivity of the S6231's built-in WiFi - better or worse than other laptops ?

3. How much real-world battery life should I expect, esp. for these two usage patterns:
a. when using the S6231 purely for word processing or spreadsheet work (ie, not using the optical drive or WiFi at all)
b. when using the S6231 to continuously view a DVD movie

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

1) I can't really answer this because I haven't used a PCMCIA Wifi card
2)I have owned 2 dell laptops, and the S6231 wi-fi reception is hands down the best of the ones I have used. For instance, with my Dell 8600, when I was in my bedroom, I would get "low" reception. With my S6231, I get "excellent" reception anywhere in my home
3) a. expect about 3-4 hours with lower brightness settings
b. I usually get about 2.5 to 2.75 hours when using the DVD player, again on lower brightness settings.

Hope that helps!

 

I have been disappointed with the wireless on my S6231. Though I seem to get pretty good reception (better than with my old IBM T40 anyway), the Intel wireless card appears to be a piece of &*^& in regard to power management flexibility and I just can't get it to connect on a regular basis unless I've got the laptop plugged in. For example I was recently on a boat in the Bahamas. The building at the end of the dock had a strong wireless signal. On battery I couldn't get connected. As soon as I plugged into external power, I connected right up. Had I known it was going to be this way, I probably would have chosen the S7010D (with the Atheros card) when I purchased. Very frustrating but had I don'e research on the Intel card itself (instead of just the laptop) before buying I would have known this going in -- problems with the Intel card are well documented. Can't help you with the DVD thing as I don't really watch any but I'll concur that 3-4 hours (maybe even a little bit more) for normal operation sounds like a good estimate if you have the brightness reduced.

Mike

 

Important point, the Atheros card is much better. And yes, you can disable it if you want a PCMCIA card also.

 

Regarding the wireless, I too was dissapointed with the performance - so bad that I went out and bought a PCMCIA Wi-fi card.

Then I found out about updating the Intel wireless firmware. Did that and BAM, the wireless became what I expect. Super.