Dell’s New 802.11n Wi-Fi Card Goes to Market

Dell, the world’s leading seller of PCs, on Monday announced availability of its new 802.11n wireless card, which it claims can give Dell laptop users five times the Web-surfing speed and double the range of notebooks employing the 802.11g Wi-Fi technology standard, according to a July 17 press release on BusinessWire.com.

Dell is now offering its Wireless 1500 Draft 802.11n dual-band wireless card for use with all Dell XPS mobile PCs and a handful of its Inspiron laptops.

After connecting to a wireless Draft 802.11n network router with Intensi-fi technology, the new card can transfer data at 270Mbps, while an 802.11g network supports only 54Mbps, according to the release. The Dell Wireless 1500 Draft 802.11n card is also Wi-Fi certified for backward compatibility with 802.11g, 802.11b and 802.11a wireless standards.

The new card is well-suited for complex computing tasks, like graphics-intensive gaming applications and streaming of high-definition video—tasks that would drag and slow typical wireless networks, according to the release.

The card goes for $59.

In addition to the release of the Dell Wireless 1500 Draft 802.11n card, the Round Rock, Texas-based PC giant also announced the creation of a new software utility, called Dell Network Assistant, which helps Dell customers who use wireless networks to set up and manage their access connections. Dell Network Assistant is already installed on all new Dell XPS computers, Inspiron laptops, Dimension desktops and a number of Dell Precision systems, according to the release.

Existing Dell customers can download and check out Network Assistant at the company’s website, and they’ll have 90 days to experiment with the tool’s full version before they have to pay $39 for continued use. If Dell customers choose not to pay the fee for usage of the tool’s full capabilities, they’ll still have access to its basic functionality, like network status reports and troubleshooting help.

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