Customer Reviews

OfficeConnect® 11Mbps Wireless PC Card w/ XJACK®

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Wireless LAN for the home is going mainstream, with a wide range of compatible 802.11b WiFi products now in the marketplace there is plenty of choice and competitive pricing. 3Com are a big corporate networking player but don't be put off by the "Officeconnect" tag. This product along with 3Com's Wireless access point router was keenly priced and met my needs for a simple home network setup sharing a broadband ADSL connection. Latest drivers and firmware can be downloaded from the 3Com support website and upgraded without a hitch. The xjack retractable antenna is a useful special feature of this card. Wireless range seems to be good, with strong signals on three different floors, even with concrete walls. Highly recommended.

This card is very good value for the money. I was tired of having to pull my wireless cards in and out all the time because of the antenna that always got in the way. This card was a breeze to set up (3 minutes) and worked like a charm since day one. I am using it on XP Professional running on a Thinkpad X series. The antenna can be toggled in and out. The good thing is that you do not even need to pop out the antenna if you have a strong signal around you. I consistently get 10+ MBPS connects with my Netgear router at home. The software that comes with it lets you set up mutiple profiles: I have one for my office and one for home. Highly recommended.

This card is amazing. The abiltiy to retract the antenna is a huge plus. A corection to another review I read - Card will not work while retracted!. The reception is excellent. I needed to replace a USR2410 due to VERY poor signal strength. I ordered linksys card (not the new 54g) since I have the Linksys WAP. Even worse signal strength than the 2410. Returned it and ordered the 3com card, with much hesitation considering my problem with the USR. Signal strength is at full where other two cards could not even connect. Amazing!! I would highly recommend this product.

The XJack is a great product for those of us with laptops that did not come with built in wireless LAN capability.

The antenna can be pushed in and tucked away without having to remove the PC card from the laptop.

When the antenna is pushed in, you CAN still get connected to a wireless LAN as long as you are less than 3-5 feet away from the wireless router.

Once you are more than 5 feet away from the wireless router, you will have to pull out the antenna to get connected.

The reception is much better than the Linksys card I used earlier.

I wish I had bought the XJack first.

In my opinion, this is the best wirless LAN PC card out there in the market since the card is in a way "integrated" into the machine instead of sticking out all the time.

Performance, design, and functionality are all excellent.

It's just better than I expected. It works even when the antenna is pushed in! (with enough signal strength around you)
I recommend it!

As with someone else that posted, I also have a Linksys wifi router and I had a Linksys wifi card which was good, but didn't give me full signal whereas the 3COM wifi card gave me FULL strength! Not only that, but the retractability of this card is way too cool, especially with my sony r505(which looks like it was made for each other)! It has only one LED, which is quite bright, that blinks when there is data being transmitted instead of having a seperate one for power and activity, which would drain a little power( nice touch 3COM!). Overall, I am well satisfied with this card would highly recommend it!

When I first bought this XJack card, I thought that it was a great idea; I could collapse it so that I wouldn't have to eject the card when putting my laptop away. However, I have used it in several different environments with several different APs and it will drop the connection every once and awhile.

Right now I'm sitting about 80 feet away from the access point and have the speed turned down to 1Mbps and it still drops the connection every couple of minutes. The signal strength seems to very a lot from Very Low to Good when the laptop is just sitting stationary.

Anyways, I hope this helps you make a smarter purchase.

When I first find this model on cnet, I decided immediately that this is what I am looking for! the only reason is its Xjack Antenna. I don't care much about how fast a pc card would work, I care about the convienence. My laptop is ibm x series, I don't like(actually hate)the design of a big head antenna outside my laptop body. It's so clumsy and ugly!
Now I really love this xjack antenna, it work well, very convenient to use and looks just like integrated in my laptop. the max download speed I got so far is 300k bytes/sec, not best but fast enough for me.

I was able to get a strong signal in every corner of my house and out in the backyard. That's about a 120-ft radius. After I moved into a college dorm last week, the card could pick up strong signal from my Netgear MR814 router all the way down the 150' hallway, thru all the wooden doors and cement walls. In my room I could even push the x-jack in and still pick up a signal. The only thing that stops the signal from reaching the social lounge was a thick steel fire exit.