Wireless laptop conections

[jbubb]

I'm in the market for a laptop and the one I like performance wise and other things (8GB ram, DVD writer) only has B, G, and N on the wireless connections. Except for the OS, I have that on my old laptop but it won't connect in most motels/hotels. Another one I like has all connections, a, b, c, g, and n but doesn't have but 4gb ram and no DVD writer. Both are HP. Am I overthinking this? I'm going cheap because I'm not wanting anything but watching sports/youtube and general surfing. One with 4 GB ram and no DVD writer is $311. The high performance one is $361. I thought having a DVD writer and 4 more gigs of ram was worth 40 bucks but the b,g.n made me wonder. I can't upgrade the one with 4 GB of ram. BTW, the high performance has an AMD A6 at 2.6 GH and the cheaper one has an AMD Ryzen 3 at 2.5 GH.

[Geek-9pm]

You said "...only has B, G, and N on the wireless connections. "'
That is not important. Why do you think you need more?
The 802.11 n is very good and will continue to be used for a long time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11

[jbubb]

Thanks, Geek-9pm, I just wasn't sure. So is it the OS that determines connectivity?

[Geek-9pm]

No, the 802.11? protocol is in the hardware.

[jbubb]

OK, I have this old 95 Toshiba XP laptop that has a built-in slot for wireless connection card and also have a Netgear USB plugin and neither will connect to today's technology. My wife has a somewhat newer Compaq laptop and her's won't either. Why? Do I/we need new adapters? It's late here and I don't feel like checking things now. I was messing with it and realized it's been a long, long time since I had messed around with things.

[DaveLembke]

Definitely get the one with 8GB RAM as for 4GB is not enough at times for some systems that I have that are running Windows 10 64-bit. Lots of paging goes on with 4GB. I upgraded one system that could take 8GB maximum to 8GB from 4GB and it behaves so much better. Drastic difference with less paging going on.

As per DVD Writers in laptops, they are being phased out of most models. You can still find them but you might find yourself liking a bunch of laptop models and then the lack of a DVD-RW drive being a bummer for them not having it.

A friend of mine had a tight budget of $400 and wanted a DVD-RW drive, yet he wanted a i5 or i7 processor laptop. I ended up finding him a refurbished laptop that is a HP Core i7 5th generation with DVD-RW drive with 16GB RAM and 240GB SSD with Windows 10 for $399.99 and he loves how fast it is and it has everything he needs. Only drawback to buying used is that the warranty on them is usually shorter than a new laptop. He has a 1 year warranty with his new used laptop purchase.

So you can find higher end hardware on the cheap by buying used. Just be careful who you buy from that it has a warranty and they have good feedback to know they will stand behind what they sell you vs stiffing you.

[DaveLembke]

95 Toshiba XP laptop... so it came originally with Windows 95 and you upgraded it to XP at some point and its a Pentium II Processor?

I had a Toshiba Portege with Pentium II 266Mhz that i got XP to install to but it maxed out at 192MB RAM so it wasnt the fastest with XP. My Portege I sold about 13 years ago, but it came with Windows 98 when i bought it as a refurb from Tiger Direct for $249.99

If its running Windows XP you can plug a USB Wireless Adapter into USB port and get it connected to the internet that way. Just have to be careful to buy a USB Network Adapter that clearly states that it supports Windows XP.

I had a USB Wireless Network Adapter on my Pentium III 500Mhz Dell with 384MB RAM running Windows XP SP2 and it had no problems with wireless connectivity to B,G, and N networks. the wireless adapter cost me $15 on newegg and plugged into the 1 and only USB port which was USB 1.1

[jbubb]

Thanks for the info Dave, my Toshiba is a 966Mhz with 256 ram, Pentium III SP3. I guess I need to look for another adapter like you said. The wireless card that came with it is a Zonet lEEE802.11G. The computer sees the card when it's plugged in but it won't connect. I need to look for the USB Netgear one, sometimes it would work when the card wouldn't. It seems like neither works at motels anymore. They were connecting to my Linksys but not tonight.                                                                   

[strollin]

Just to let you know, if a system supports 802.11n, then it is also backward compatible with a, b, c & g.  Each new iteration maintains compatibility with the previous.

[camerongray]

Nowadays the WiFi that comes with any new laptop will be sufficient for most uses.  It's much more important to look at the other specs, I'd go with 8gb of RAM as a minimum nowadays, a relatively decent CPU and ideally an SSD over a hard drive.  What are you planning on using the machine for as this will be the most important thing in deciding what machine is more suitable.  Is there any reason you're tied to those two machines?  Would also be useful if you could link them here.

Loads of modern laptops won't include DVD drives due to the space they take up inside the machine, you can always use a USB one for when you need DVDs so I wouldn't discount a laptop without one unless you need to use DVDs all the time.

As for WiFi, as strollin said, they are backwards compatible so you don't need to worry about that.  Most decent laptops will support the latest "802.11ac" standard which is the latest "mainstream" standard replacing N.  A laptop that only supports 802.11n will work but I'd be concerned that it's an older/bottom of the range model since AC is pretty much the standard on all new machines.

[jbubb]

First of all, thanks to all who replied. As mentioned, my Zonet card is a (g), maybe that's why it won't connect to motels that are running Windows 10 or a,c? As you can tell it's been a long time since I've dabbled in this stuff. I'm going to hardwire my laptop this morning, update all drivers and go to youtube and see if the stream is fast enough to enjoy. I hate buffering. To answer other questions, I agree that the more ram the better. I have two home computers that have 12 and 16. The two laptops mentioned were at Walmart and both HP. I like HP over Dell and others I have no experience with. The $311 one is marked down from 359 and is an HP Ryzen, why it shows $329 now I don't know.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/HP-15-Laptop-15-6-AMD-Ryzen-3-2200U-AMD-Radeon-Vega-3-1TB-HDD-4GB-SDRAM-Jet-Black-15-db0066wm/471500900

The $361 with 8gb ram and DVD writer is also an HP.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/HP-15-6-High-Performance-Home-Business-Laptop-AMD-A6-Dual-Core-Processor-8GB-RAM-1TB-HDD-15-6-HD-1366-x-768-AMD-Radeon-R4-WiFi-Bluetooth-DVD-Win-10-H/600015985?selected=true

I'd say it's a no brainer which of the two to pick from, right?

[jbubb]

I had forgotten how slow this Toshiba with XP was. I've been messing with it for 2 hours now and have hardly gotten anything done.

[DaveLembke]

It seems like neither works at motels anymore. They were connecting to my Linksys but not tonight.

One issue you can be running into with this is that the browser is out of date for whatever the hotel has as a web page to agree to terms and conditions to. As well as some require you to enter room number and last name to authenticate.

If you have a kindle or some other device with an up to date browser you may find that the getting connected is easy, however an out of date browser is unable to load the webpage for the hotel or motel which requires you to agree to terms and conditions as well as possibly enter info to prove your a paying customer of a room before it gives a wireless lease to your computer.

With XP, I think all browsers are out of date for it as support has been dropped across the board. So if thats the issue your running into, then you pretty much need a newer computer that has a new enough browser to support the page that normally would load that you need to agree to to get connected.

[jbubb]

I totally agree with the browser issue being the problem. I've been shopping and am about to put out a few more bucks and get a 17.3 screen with all the goodies for about $429. I'll probably get a dud, the story of my life. Anyway, here it is. I'm going with 12 GB ram which jumps it to $429.

https://store.hp.com/us/en/ConfigureView?catalogId=10051&langId=-1&storeId=10151&urlLangId=&catEntryId=3074457345618816819&quantity=1&color=jet+black

[DaveLembke]

The link provided just brings up the base model without extras added, but looking in the options as long as you go with Ryzen CPU you should be all set. I'd avoid the A9-9425 dual-core and get the Ryzen if you can afford to and if not already purchased.

I have a system with A8-5545 and its a quadcore 1.7Ghz with 2.7Ghz turbo and pretty good but the dual-cores I avoid these days. I bought this A8-5545 system because of the quadcore performance which outperforms some A9 and A10 processors. However I have a new laptop with a Ryzen 3 and I like that systems performance better.

If you havent ordered already, I'd try to get a quadcore Ryzen such as the AMD Ryzen™ 3 2300U (2 GHz, up to 3.4GHz, 6 MB cache, 4 cores)+AMD Radeon™ Vega 6 Graphics if budget permits.