Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 (7260HMW) 867Mbps 802.11ac Wi-Fi Bluetooth 4.0
Feb 22, 2016
By Far, This is The Best WiFi card out There!
I'll make it brief because there are already dozens of in-depth reviews online on this card. In particular, that online retailer that names itself after a new kind of egg and the one named after the famous rainforest, have lots of detailed reviews.
Why is this card so good and so often praised? Because it just works. It doesn't have issues with connectivity or cumbersome drivers or firmware. It works on pretty much all popular operating system including most Linux distributions. This particular version also incorporates Bluetooth 4.0 which means that you can use headsets, mice, and the various other bluetooth-enabled peripherals on your laptop.
Most importantly on the hardware side are the AC standard and the 5 GHz. Now for those of you don't know what that is, I'd suggest a quick search over at a place that can break it down more simply but in short, its a networking standard that allows WiFi to work at higher theoretical speed.
The 5 GHz is simply another radio band at which WiFi can operate. Not all phones/laptops/tablets support it but nearly all modern ones do. Put simply again, using this band can be helpful if you live in a densely populated area and there are a lot of WiFi networks in your area. Most networks operate on the 2.4 GHz band which means they are prone to more interference with each other and also from microwaves.
Lastly, you should make sure that you or have someone you can ask, knows how to take apart your laptop and can install this chip (its relatively easy, search online for videos on YT 'how to install wifi card on laptop'). Also, make sure that this is compatible with the device you intend to use it on. Your specific electronic may use a different type of connector.
One last note: some nefarious manufacturers add software to your machine that will prevent you from booting up the operating system if it detects a piece of hardware that is different from what the computer shipped with. This technique is known as 'whitelisting' and it is done on the Bios level (the software on your motherboard that tells the other parts in your computer how to run/work properly). Which means removing the whitelist is not an easy process.
Two manufacturers that I know have done this with their laptops in the past are Lenovo and HP. There may be and probably are others that do the same so you should do a google search with something along the lines of: '[Manufacturer of your device] [model number] whitelist' and look through the forums that may come up in the search results.
I should have listened to the reviews on A--Z. The tape itself is great. The handle is comfortable with a soft grip, but the function of the dispenser is pretty terrible. It requires a lot more pressure than other tape dispensers to push the plastic tab down and have the blades extend to cut the tape. In practice this means that it will cut successfully 6/10 times. The other times it will only partly cut the tape or worse, the pressure you need to exert will send the wheel spinning backwards causing the tape to wind itself backwards and requiring you to unjam it.
Initially, I thought it was me, I must be using it wrong, but I did everything as the instructions directed. So I went back to the old green body design and it was as smooth as butter. The tape unrolls easily and cuts exactly when you want it to.
Then I thought to bring it to the warehouse and hand it to the pros who tape boxes all day. As soon as they saw the red body they had a reaction, they had already dealt with them before.
This new design is poorly engineered which explains why it's selling as low as it is. Maybe someone will come up with a modification but in the meantime this thing will serve as a nice paperweight.