Belkin N1 Wireless Notebook Card

by Belkin

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 6 x 8.5 x 2.5 inches ; 8 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000FPLTW8
• Item model number: F5D8011
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 7, 2004

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The Belkin N1 Wireless Notebook Card connects your notebook computer to a wireless network. Providing greater range and faster speeds, N1 offers an excellent solution for sending large files such as video, music, photos, and documents among the networked computers in your home.

Based on the 802.11n draft, N1 Wireless enables multiple receivers and transmitters to send and receive data using Intelligent MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) spatial multiplexing techniques. This smart-antenna technology builds upon the widely deployed 802.11g standard by greatly increasing speed and range.

Features and Benefits

• Handle multiple VoIP phone calls
• Email and chat
• The easiest way to setup a wireless network
• Ideal for transferring video, music, and photo files

Product Description

The N1 Wireless Notebook Card connects your notebook computer to a wireless network. Providing greater range and faster speeds, N1 offers an excellent solution for sending large files such as video, music, photos, and documents among the networked computers in your home.Based on the 802.11n draft, N1 Wireless enables multiple receivers and transmitters to send and receive data using Intelligent MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) spatial multiplexing techniques. This smart-antenna technology builds upon the widely deployed 802.11g standard by greatly increasing speed, range and faster speeds up to 300Mbps.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A few problems..., August 7, 2006

By 

John M. Knight "sirlioneyes" (Lake Forest, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Belkin N1 Wireless Notebook Card (Personal Computers)

I bought this Belkin N1 Notebook Card because I had also bought the Belkin N1 Wireless Router. My thinking was that by matching the two, I would maximize my wireless performance. But, to my surprise, performance isn't significantly better than that of my wife's HP laptop which came with Wireless G support. If this was the only issue, I would be OK with the product. However, I have been a bit frustrated with its other problems. The card has problems recovering from situations where the laptop goes into standby mode and windows goes into hybernation. When the laptop resumes windows operation, the card is stuck and does not resume operation (both of the blue lights on the card are on solid). In some situations this can totally hang the laptop and there is no recourse but to power down the laptop and reboot it from scratch. In other situations, I have been able to disable and re-enable the network connection associated with the card and things recover. At any rate, it is a pain either way. I'm surprised Belkin has not addressed this obvious software defect... some basic functional testing would have easily found this problem. I have also seen a few times where my laptop has hung while cruising the internet since installing this card... I think there has been others that have reported this issue too.

I have been using this card for about a month now.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It works, March 8, 2007

By 

C. Richard Dwozan (Cornelia, GA United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Belkin N1 Wireless Notebook Card (Personal Computers)

I read reviews of the Belkin N-1 networking family and was scared to leave my pre-N system behind. However, my Pre-N router died and true to their word Belkin promptly replaced it. At this point I was willing to invest in a Belkin's N-1 laptop card just to see how it performed. In fact I bought 2. I installed one card in a couple of year old Dell which is in an upstairs location while the router is downstairs. The laptop reports a very good to excellent signal amd "300 mbps" - it is noticable faster in pulling files from other network devices. The other laptop is a bit older Gateway. It too is upstairs, directly overhead from the router. It does not report as strong of a signal but seems to get the job done and reports faster than "108 mbps" and sometimes "300 mbps". While I have not experimented with placing the stronger signaled Dell in the location of the Gateway to see how it performs, I suspect that the difference is attributable to the Gateway being older technology.

The greatest challenge I had with setting up the network was with security. I succeeded with the security mode of WPA/WPA-2 Personal (PSK); Authentication of WPA/PSK; Encryption Technique of AES (I could not establish connection between my computers using TKP Encryption Technique).

In summary, setting up the network took some effort and familiarity with networks - how to set and change properties in the network connection both on the laptops and the browser interface with the router. Once the network was established its performance has been reliable and faster. All-in-all I would not make the investment to surf-the-net but if you access larger files, like photographs, from another computer or network drive, you will notice the difference - if the bandwidth of the hardware you are using is on par with the N-1 capabilities. To make this come true for me I upgraded the NIC in my computers which are hardwired to the router to 1Gb technology. The upgrade was worthwhile given that my network drive, where photographs are stored is capable of a transfer rate of 250 mbps and my zip drive is USB 2.0. In other words, all of my hardware is capable of faster transfer rates.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very Bad Notebook Networking Card, September 22, 2007

By 

Alice J. Gunn - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Belkin N1 Wireless Notebook Card (Personal Computers)

I got this notebook card on a good sale and thought myself very fortunate, but nothing could have been further from the truth. The first computer that I try to use this card in was a five-year-old Toshiba laptop running Windows XP. After about four hours of trying to get this card to work, I finally gave up and called the Belkin Tech support. They were a very typical tech support, and pass the buck on to my Internet provider. After an hour of working with my Internet provider's tech support. He concluded that the fault lie with this Belkin wireless notebook card. I think called Belkin Tech support back and explain to them the conclusions that my Internet service provider had come to. The Blinking tech-support I spoke to promptly blamed the problem on my wireless router. Not wanting to argue the point. I've then called up my wireless router tech support and after about 45 minutes of troubleshooting, they concluded that the router was working flawlessly. I called blinking tech-support back a third time, of course this was after a three-day weekend, and after an hour and 15 minutes of changing settings on my computer and my wireless router, we finally got the card working. It didn't last long though. It worked for about a week and then one morning, when the computer was booted up the router would never connect again. I personally spent about six hours tinkering with the card and speaking with Belkin tech-support before I finally got fed up and gave the card up for a loss. I gave my brother-in-law a chance to try to get it to work. After over 10 hours of work and contacting tech support for many companies, including Verizon, Linksys and Belkin he gave up. I tried installing the card in a brand-new Toshiba Qosmio. I could never get the card to work or connect to a well-established home wireless network. It would see that the wireless network was there, and it would ask for a WEP key but it would never connect. It was very frustrating, to say the least. I highly suggest, no matter how good of deal this card may seem, go with some other brand of wireless notebook card and save yourself many hours of frustration and pointless calls to numerous tech-support services.