In my tests of many 802.11b PC Card wireless client adapters, I've found little to differentiate the performance of one from another - aside from WEP-enabled throughput loss in older designs.

The reason for this is simple: the antenna in most 802.11b PC cards is awful! I'll describe just how awful later, but for now, I'll just say that investigating the following alternatives might be a quick way to enhance your wireless laptop's performance:

Go dual band

Although it may seem a contradiction to what I just said, I have found a clearly better 802.11b PC card client in the form of any Atheros-based dual-band CardBus card. Maybe you don't need the 802.11a aspect of the card, but pop one of these babies into your laptop and you should see a significant difference in 802.11b performance vs. range due to its superior radio and antenna design.

Note that the improvement holds for both the older dual (a/b) and newer tri (a/b/g) mode cards. Check out my reviews of the NETGEAR WAB501 dual-mode, or WAG511 tri-mode cards for more details and performance data. Other models that should offer equivalent performance are the Linksys WPC51AB and ORiNOCO Silver and Gold Dual-Band cards.

XWing marks the spot