Thinkpad b/g/n VS Wireless-N 1000

I know Wireless-N 1000 is better, but I forgot to change the configuration when I placed the order (was busy talking to paypal rep at the same time placing the order)

and a few minutes after I placed the order I realized my mistake and chatted to ask the rep to make the change and I was told change being made. next day, in order to make sure, I also emailed website to confirm my request for change. no response.

then 3 days later the laptop is shipped already and I found out no change has been made.

Can you believe how incompetent Lenovo customer service is?

anyway, my question now is exactly how much better is Wireless-N 1000?

is it worth me to cancel and reorder?

thanks!

 

Can you cancel an order that has already shipped? Personally the real difference is in the 6200 (2x2)/6300 (3x3) cards.

EDIT: The default radio is a 2.4GHz Realtek 1x1 card and the N-1000 is a 2.4GHz 1x2 card which means it has 1 transmitter and 2 receivers. The extra receiver will make a difference in receive sensitivity.

 

not cancel. I meant return.

guess it's not worth the hassle. I guess I have to stuck with b/g/n then

thanks

oh. I order the 3X3 antennas

 

A return would likely have a 15% restocking fee which wouldn't be worth it at all. If it's important I would look at purchasing the a 6205 or 6300 card and upgrading yourself if you have 3 antennas.

 

since it was Lenovo's mistake...I am confident there will be no restocking ee.


no sure if it's important...just nice to have I guess...

 

I say see how it goes. I have the ThinkPad card and haven't had a single issue with it.

 

If you really want to then you could return it but don't open the box and you wont get the restocking fee. They only charge (i think) if the box has been opened.

However, instead of doing all that. You can buy the Lenovo Intel 6200 for say $30 and just put it in yourself. It's not complicated at all, just make sure you get the LENOVO version however.

 

They might just send you the card if you ask since it was their error and the WiFi card is a CRU.

 

Alternately just buy the Intel WiFi Link 1000 part yourself, install it and keep the Realtek card for other purposes.

ebay has the Intel 1000 for about $30. Search FRU 60Y3203

 

An advantage of the N1000 is it supports Widi (Wireless Display) link, if you are at all interested in that feature.

That is one of the reasons I opted for one of the Intel offerings. I got the 6205 because it had the max antennas (2x2) while still having room for the webcam.

 

if you are going to buy an aftermarket Intel card, then you should just get a Intel 6205 wireless instead.

 

For home internet usage, I have had no problems with the ThinkPad 1x1 b/g/n wireless card in my T520.

 

the 1x1 card don't support the 5 ghz bandwidth and sometimes have problems picking up weak wifi signals.

 

I have had no problems at all with the Wireless-N 1000 at home or office.

That said, I might consider this 6300 for $25.50 shipped, if it's the right one:
Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 Wireless Card for Lenovo | eBay

It's explicitly indicated as a proper part for only up to the T410 etc. Would this work for a T420? How do I tell for myself in the future, to avoid these newbie questions?

 

Just to be clear, neither the 1x1 RealTek nor the 1000N support 5GHz. The 1000N just has an extra receive chain which will help receive sensitivity.

I see no reason why this wouldn't work in the T420/T520. I can check the PN of the 6300 card that I have in my T520 to compare to this if you're interested.

 

You might want to open up your expansion bay and inspect how many antenna wires are installed. iirc third antenna isn't installed unless the notebook was configured for 3x3 out of the factory. Could be wrong on that though.

 

I appreciate it, but I don't want to put you to any trouble. I'll just ask the seller. That way I can return it if it turns out not to work after all. I figured the same 6300 would work in both machines, and would therefore be identical, with the same part number. I'll give it a shot.

 

My T420i has 3X3 antennas and no webcam. Thank you for the reminder. This could be important for someone to consider before buying one of these.

 

No problem at all. Been looking for a reason to open it up and look under the hood.



The label is different but you can see that the part numbers are the same. The ones that the seller has might be labeled for accessory sale versus what's sold as an option at the time of order.

EDIT: Totally unrelated, but when under the keyboard I looked for the location for the mSATA drive which I thinking of ordering. OMG! I had no idea the drive was that freakin' small. :O Awesome that you get that much storage on such a small device.

 

You could try the 6200 when Newegg gets it back in stock. Newegg.com - Intel 622AN.HMWWB Wireless Adapter 6200 Centrino Advanced-N Mini PCI Express Up to 300Mbps Wireless Data Rates 64/128-Bit WEP, WPA, WPA2

They've got the N1000 in stock for $11.99. Newegg.com - Intel 112BN.HMWWB Centrino Wireless-N 1000 802.11b/g/n Wireless Half Mini PCIe Card IEEE 802.11b/g/n Mini PCI Express Up to 300Mbps Wireless Data Rates WEP, WPA, WPA2 802.1x (EAP-TLS, TTLS, PEAP, LEAP, EAP-FAST),

They also have the 6300 for $34.99. Newegg.com - Intel Ultimate N 633ANHMW Ultimate N 633ANHMW Wireless Adapter Mini PCI Express Up to 450Mbps Wireless Data Rates 64/128-Bit WEP, WPA, WPA2

 

I've previously mentioned that I've only tested the ThinkPad 1x1 wireless card at home. Today is my first day back to school.

I'm posting this from my university library. I have not experienced any problems logging in, and using the network here, in this "crowded" environment. So, first impressions are good. I was worried initially about the basic wireless card, but so far, so good. I think it is going to work out fine for me.

 

so I ordered a new one with 6205 instead...make Lenovo price match(the current discount is lower than previously) and well as $13 dollar(suppose to make 6205 free, but somehow I gave them too rough a figure) in compensation...hey, the compensation is not worth 9 days of delay and hours spent in talking with reps at all

 

I've seen several threads where people have "forgotten" to upgrade the wireless card to one of the Intel offerings. The price difference between the ThinkPad 1x1 and the Intel N-1000 is so small, I wonder why they even offer the Realtek card. Judging from this forum, it seems like a few ThinkPads have been returned because of this.

 

I am one of those people who just simply forgot to change it. I realized after the order was shipped (very fast, by the time I thought about modifying my order, it was shipped)

Anyway, I sincerely doubt anyone would be ignorant enough to return the whole thinkpad just because they forgot to select a different card in their config. After all, they can simply swap it themselves for $20-$50, in most cases cheaper than what it would have cost them from Lenovo (they will have both for same price).

Has there even been comparison tests run with Thinkpad b/g/n, Intel 1000, 6000 or others to see how much of a difference is there (with same antenna configuration, 2x2) The problem is bgn uses 1x1 while others can utilize 2x2 or 3x3 if equipped. My 2x2 equipped Thinkpad b/g/n surely does slightly worse than my 3,5yr old Toshiba w/centrino card picking up weaker signals (Especially Cable TV Provided Routers or distant, older models with lots of walls in-between) but at home it is not a major issue, and outside I can't really tell because I just work with whatever it picks up. So I don't know what I am missing.

So, unless there is a solid proof that 6000 or even 1000 does substantially better than thinkpad b/g/n, I see no reason to open up my laptop to swap the card.

The other very important consideration is the battery life. Does any one of these improved cards consume more power? If so, is it negligible?

 

Aside from the prior mentioned diversity antenna 802.11n support, there is also the suite of Intel "My WiFi Technology" features, the most notable of which is WiDi. I honestly don't think any of them are particularly compelling, but I suppose having is better than not having.

On the other hand, the Realtek and Aetheros chipsets may be more handy if you plan on using the laptop for security testing and other more advanced uses.

 

Something only has value if you use it. If it costs more, but you don't use it, why pay more for it?

 

OT: ZaZ, if you still have your Thinkpad Ultraportable Case, can you post a picture/pictures of it with your X220 in it and also comment on quality in the X220 Case topic? I guess you removed your subscription from that topic.

 

In practically all cases, the Thinkpad (Realtek) wifi adapter and the Intel WiFi 1000 are the same cost when configuring a CTO on lenovo.com. If there was a difference in cost, then yes I would have dinged the WiFi 1000 for that.

Personally my choice was for the 6205 for both -n diversity xmit and to a lesser extent the vPro features.

 

So I am not the only one

 

When do you get your card? Curious to hear about your experience.

BTW, do the T420/T520 come with 3 antennas anyway? I only saw the web cam/2 antenna/3 antenna options on the X220.

 

The RealTek and 1000N cards weren't options for me personally because I wanted a 5GHz radio. I live in a row home in the city and can see as many as 20 SSIDs at 2.4GHz and not one at 5.xGHz. So I plan to move much of my network to 5GHz where it's clear.

 

It's going to be up to another two weeks. It hasn't hit the U.S. yet, according to the tracking info supplied through eBay.

IIRC the three-antenna option was only available if I picked no webcam. I believe this is the same with the X220. But yes, you should be able to configure one this way at any time.

 

When ordering my T520, the Intel 1000 was a $10 CAD upgrade over the ThinkPad 1x1 card.

 

Update: Lenovo now defaults to Intel 1000 and puts Thinkpad b/g/n as second choice when you are building an X220. They are both at no additional charge.

 

Would this be compatible with my X220? I have all three antennas.

 

The Intel Centrino 6300 Ultimate N card should work fine as its a configurable option in the X220, plus the fact you got 3 antennas ready means it's just the matter of plug and play. Make sure the one you pick is a Lenovo branded card otherwise it won't work.

 

Well in the Ebay link it says it's lenovo branded but the FRU is different than what I found in the X220 manual but still it's a lenovo FRU.

 

I asked the eBay seller whether it would work in a T420, but merely got some hedging in broken English. I decided to order it anyway.

It arrived last week, and tonight I installed it. It was a matter of only several minutes. I didn't even have to disconnect the keyboard, after sliding it out. The third white antenna was taped in place (to anyone reading, remember that if your machine has a webcam, you will only have two antennas and should go with the 6205 card instead). After a boot, the device was recognized and a default driver was automatically installed, then I installed the 6300 management software from Intel's website, which I'd downloaded prior just to be safe.

So far the performance on my home network seems slightly better than the Wireless N-1000, but I might be fooling myself. I don't seem to be able to see any extra networks.

I can continue to recomment the 1000 card, which gave me decent enough performance for the price. I'm happy to have gotten this card at a discount. Time will tell if it's a substantial upgrade in terms of real-world performance.