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Wireless N, is there really a massive difference?

marold280

marold280

macrumors 6502
Original poster
I'm getting a uMacbook soon (YAY) and it has wireless N. I've been using wireless G on my white macbook, and would like to know if there is really that much difference.
Our router doesnt support N atm. Would it be worth getting an airport extreme?
Thanks (i dont search btw🙂)
 
Yeah, the range is much better and also if you're transferring files within a network, you'll see a huge improvement. An AirPort Extreme operating in N-only 5ghz mode can rival (and theoretically surpass) 100Mbit ethernet.
 
Im still using 802.11b and it works fine but I don't do much but connect to the Internet, I thought about getting an N but I don't know if I would see a big difference
 
Wireless N has dramatically increased my backup times and internet speed as a whole. I am unsure if you will see the difference if you are bottlenecked by your ISP, however.
 
wow. got home today to find a netgear router has replaced our old one. and it has N ! YES!
Just have to get the MacBook now 😉
 
Gamming on Wireless N 5.0ghz
is almost as fast as direct connection. Very long latency / interference.

Wireless N works through 2 exterior walls, but not 4 exterior walls at my current location.
 
Technically...

marold280 said:
I'm getting a uMacbook soon (YAY) and it has wireless N. I've been using wireless G on my white macbook, and would like to know if there is really that much difference.
Our router doesnt support N atm. Would it be worth getting an airport extreme?
Thanks (i dont search btw🙂)
Click to expand...

On paper, N networking is a huge step up from G and it's predecessors. In all practicality, you won't notice a huge difference (if any) with respect to surfing the net. There are other limiting components. You're only as fast as your slowest component.
 
Toofan said:
On paper, N networking is a huge step up from G and it's predecessors. In all practicality, you won't notice a huge difference (if any) with respect to surfing the net. There are other limiting components. You're only as fast as your slowest component.
Click to expand...

This is so true. I upgraded to N from G when I got my macbook a few weeks ago and didn't notice much of a difference at all. Not until I noticed that my internet speeds were the same BUT my network file transfer speeds were significantly faster. (700mb dvd quality move went from 25 min to 10 min). So I called up my ISP and had a long conversation with them and it turns out that they hadn't upgraded the internet speed and bandwidth in my area to account for the N's speed. So I got them to hurry it up. 3 days later they finally finished and now there is a significant improvement in my internet speed.

Surfing the internet, you won't notice the difference all that much. But downloading files and streaming movies/tv shows (hulu anyone?!) will be better. My torrent files are even downloading faster. 🙂 Yay!
 
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