Wow this is sad...

[phungy]

You all know I have a MB, recently got an iPhone. I went into my router to check signal quality and the iPhone gets better signal quality than my roommate's X60s. Our notebooks are equi-distant from the wireless router too.

Another reason to buy a Mac 😀

 

[suneohair]

What router do you have?

 

[72930]

Apple's plastic laptops are awesome for picking up signal, but unfortunately the metal ones don't have that advantage...

 

[phungy]

What router do you have?

Linksys WRT54GS with dd-wrt's firmware.

Apple's plastic laptops are awesome for picking up signal, but unfortunately the metal ones don't have that advantage...

Probably, a friend mentioned that also...but the X60s looks plastic...and its only ~2.5 lbs 🙁

 

[Andrmgic]

Thanks for posting that bit of info.. I never would have thought a plastic laptop would pick up a better signal than a metal one.

This might influence my mac buying decision later on.

 

[Gizmotoy]

HAHA. Why bother scribbling out local LAN addresses (192.168.*.*)? Sorry, that amused me. 🙂

 

[MBHockey]

HAHA. Why bother scribbling out local LAN addresses (192.168.*.*)? Sorry, that amused me. 🙂

haha that made me laugh too 🙂

 

[0098386]

It's so we can't hack him 😛 (yes yes I know)

Our new router doesn't have any fancy graphs like that. but my PowerBook gets an identical signal to my iMac (plastic one). Yet a few feet over to my brothers room and the signal just dies. Silly house.

 

[phungy]

HAHA. Why bother scribbling out local LAN addresses (192.168.*.*)? Sorry, that amused me. 🙂

Since you really wanted to see my local IP address, see first post again.

 

[MBHockey]

It's so we can't hack him 😛 (yes yes I know)

Our new router doesn't have any fancy graphs like that. but my PowerBook gets an identical signal to my iMac (plastic one). Yet a few feet over to my brothers room and the signal just dies. Silly house.

It's a 3rd party firmware, which is very good by the way. I use it on my linksys wrt54gl..wouldn't ever go back to stock linksys firmware.

 

[phungy]

It's so we can't hack him 😛 (yes yes I know)

Our new router doesn't have any fancy graphs like that. but my PowerBook gets an identical signal to my iMac (plastic one). Yet a few feet over to my brothers room and the signal just dies. Silly house.

I forgot to mention that it is a 3rd party firmware, DD-WRT. It's so much better than Linksys' firmware. Free too!

 

[egiles]

The X60s (as with almost every Thinkpad) has a Magnesium top lid and bottom that will block (or severly limit) wireless range. That is why if you look at a Thinkpad lid, you will see a few areas that are grooved sections-these sections are regular plastic and the antennas sit behind them.

Also, Lenovo usually has two or three different types of wireless cards-either Intel or Atheros based. The Atheros are power hungry and run hotter, but have better range overall than the more efficient Intel based cards.

I have a T60p, a T61p, and have owned an X61 tablet. I also recently picked up a used Macbook off of ebay to mess around with (really liking it by the way!) and the wireless reception on the Macbook is no better or worse than any of the Thinkpads.