Buffalo AirStation PC Card review

Buffalo is the network brand of massive Japanese manufacturer Melco.

I had a brace of its AirStation PC Card wireless network adapters and two different types of base station to play with. Whether you want to hook up two laptops, a laptop and a PC, or any combination of either to an existing wired network or the Internet, Buffalo seems to have a solution.

Features

Installing the PC Card adapter on the Toshiba test notebook was a simple matter of inserting it into the slot and offering the driver floppy when required. A reboot later, and you're ready to set up the protocols you wish to use on your network. Installation on a desktop PC is a little more complicated, as you have to install the PCI adapter for PC Cards first. After that, you must tell the driver that it's in the PCI adapter, rather than in a notebook, which isn't clearly documented in the manual.

For improved security, you can also set up encryption. Four encryption keys can be specified to ensure only authorised systems can see the data being transmitted. Should you wish to connect your wireless network to a wired one and/or the Internet, Buffalo's Access Points are also the cheapest around. There's even one with a built-in modem, although ISDN isn't an option.

Performance

With the drivers installed, and static TCP/IP addresses set up, I was ready to run our tests. All Buffalo's wireless products use the 802.11b standard, so offer a potential speed of 11Mbit/s - more than enough for most uses. As a peer-to-peer network between a PC and a notebook, the Buffalo was easily the fastest wireless kit, achieving 521K/s in our large .Avi file test. It's still not wired speed, but easily sufficient for most everyday file and Internet sharing.

Overall

For the home or small business user looking to go wireless, Buffalo's AirStation offers the best performance at its price. The PC Cards were the fastest and cheapest on test. Add in the low cost of access points, and you have a winning choice for notebooks and desktops.