Can somebody explain what it means for a lap-top to have it's specs listed as 802.11bgn vs 802.11ac? From what I understand, this is a feature of the router, not the laptop, so I'm guessing that this is talking about the types of routers that the laptop is compatible with?

Is it possible to up-grade the laptop stuff to be compatible with 802.11ac, if I get one with 802.11bgn and it is having problems w/ the speed?

both the device (laptop, etc) and the access point (router) need to support the technology in order for you to use the technology. if you're asking this question, you pretty much certainly won't need 802.11ac to be plenty happy with speeds. but i've also never seen a device which supports 802.11ac that did not also support 802.11g/n, so you could really go with either and be fine.

it is technically possible to "upgrade" your wireless later down the road, but you won't really want to do that. it would require buying and using a usb device.

Thanks joe,

From what I read, the 802.11ac is "stronger" in that it supports the older stuff. Basically, I am looking at laptops for mass-tabling, and I can get a very good deal on a high-end gaming laptop w/ all kinds of stuff (384GB SSD, 1 TB @ 7200 RPM, 24 GB RAM, etc.), and it comes w/ the 802.11bgn. I'm trying to figure out if this matters to the point where it would affect my (best) decision, so I guess you are saying that for me, it wouldn't matter?

I am only looking to use the laptop for mass-tabling and running a lot of poker soft-ware, both while playing (HM2 w/ HUD) and away from the tables (CREV, etc.).

By the way, if I am having problems and want to upgrade to 802.11ac, then it's just as simple as buying a stick for $70 bucks or what-ever, and plugging it in to the USB port on my laptop?

It seems like a no-brainer then.

yeah, you won't need ac. ac has much higher throughput than n which has much higher throughput than g. you'd probably even be fine with g.

we can be more definitive about it by looking at your internet connection. what service do you have? it will be described as for example like 25mbps download and 4mbps upload (or similar). more than likely your internet service would be the bottleneck. 802.11g can get effectively ~20mbps, n can get effectively ~150mbps, and ac can get effectively ~500mbps right now for one user. you'd really only get benefit from the more expensive 802.11n devices or 802.11ac devices if you had really fast internet, a whole bunch of users, and your own network server for movies and files and such.


yeah, "upgrading" down the road would be as you described. it's just kind of inconvenient in that you'd always have to have that usb device hanging out of your laptop.

AC has better range, speed, and ability to handle multiple users. The latter factor especially with wave 2 I believe (there are wave 1 and wave 2 AC routers, and I don't believe the latter are out yet).

Any WiFi you can buy won't be a bottleneck. And poker doesn't require much bandwidth anyway.

ac only has better range to the extent that a new router has more/better technologies (beamforming, etc) than an older one. Signals in the 2.4GHz band (used by 802.11g) attenuate less over distance and through obstructions than the 5GHz band (used by 802.11ac). So if all other things were held equal, ac would get less range than g. That said, most newer routers will support beamforming, and so in that respect may outperform older routers.