Wi-fi card: What to know?

[Papageoff]

I want to get a wi-fi card for my T5 to use at school for e-mail and what not. Is there anything (other than horrid battery life) I should know about? Things that might cause problems with connecting, etc? I don't know much about wi-fi, so any help will be appreciated.

[rei]

seems to cause lotta fatal resets :/
blazer sucks
load netfront on if you can....

[tgeorges]

Until recently, I used the WiFi card with my T5 (have a TX now). I can't agree with rei - blazer was just fine, although my TX seems a bit faster than the T5 did, although it might be my imagination (different Blazer versions, so who knows?). I did try loading NetFront and got it working after much difficulty. It was quite a bit faster, although it had no one-handed operation to speak of, the scrolling stunk (did 1/2 screen scrolling), the smaller fonts also showed up in other apps unexpectedly, and without these smaller fonts that Dmitry has graciously provided, the screen shows way too little info. Also, I experienced more crashes and unexpected behavior with NF, as I had to have some other apps installed (e.g. MaxX) that seemed to negatively impact the stability of my T5.

A couple things about the WiFi card:

1 - Sometimes the T5 wouldn't detect it - something about no card being detected. Sometimes just popping it out then back in did the trick, but other times I had to soft reset.

2 - My TX seems to heat up when using WiFi. No such problem with the T5 + WiFi card.

3 - Battery life did indeed suffer while WiFi-ing. However, it's hard to say if it's really any better with the TX. Underclock the T5 and I would think they would be very similar (although I never did any real tests).

Overall my experience with the T5 + WiFi was positive, even with Blazer.

-Tom

[applejosh]

Also, the wifi card only does WEP, so if your school uses some sort of authentication/encryption other than WEP (eg. WPA), you're probably out of luck. This is one area where PalmOS is showing its age (although I understand the LifeDrive and the TX both do WPA-PSK).

[Papageoff]

Hmm, I had better look into that encryption thing.

[tgeorges]

Yes - I forgot to mention that. I've successfully used WEP on the WiFi card, but it all depends on where you need access. If school uses WEP, you're set. If not, then the WiFi card is a useless piece of plastic (at least at school). I used mine at home all the time, and I just set up a WEP passcode (as I had control of the router) :).

I've asked on a couple other topic threads if the WEP-only on the WiFi card is a limitation of the card firmware itself, or of the drivers that come with it. No response so far. It would be very interesting to try to load the TX wifi library files on the T5 and see if the WiFi card on T5 will support WPA...

-Tom

[applejosh]

I remember when the specs for WPA were being developed and such, and one of the positives was that WPA would just require a software update to use since the same algorithms were being used. However, I think theory and practice diverged (or at least all the manufaturers decided it was better to make people upgrade hardware), as I saw very very few cards get WPA updates (at least in regards to laptops). I know WPA2 (aka 802.11i) uses AES (instead of RC2 or RC4, whichever was in WEP) and is therefore incompatible with most WEP-only wifi chipsets. I would like Palm to issues some updates to the wifi card if possible to allow at least WPA-PSK, but I doubt they will since that's a "reason" to upgrade to the LifeDrive or TX.

[sfringer]

It should simply be a software issue (on supporting WPA) as I'm able to access the PEAP Wi-Fi here at work on my T3 with Palm Wi-Fi card using the MeetingHouse Aegis client (designed for the Tungsten C - but works on the T3).

But as previously mentioned, why invest in updating your existing customers when you can get more money having them buy a whole new device.

Scott

[applejosh]

But as previously mentioned, why invest in updating your existing customers when you can get more money having them buy a whole new device.

Well, maybe to make customers feel good about the products they buy from you and to encourage them to purchase your products in the future? I'm just thinking out loud. :rolleyes:

[Papageoff]

Hey now applejosh, thats crazy talk!