Although the dual-band NETGEAR WAB501 was an excellent PCMCIA card and scored well, we rated the single-band 802.11a NETGEAR HA501 higher because of its ability to cope with dire signal conditions. However, this also depended on which access point it was tested with, as we experienced some dropouts with different hardware.

With the NETGEAR HE102 access point the card did rather well, with its 802.11a speeds outshining the other equipment. Again, speed isn't everything, but the HA501 had good signal strength even when the actual signal quality was downgraded by interference, and was still capable of transferring large and uncorrupted files.

If there was one real concern with NETGEAR's WAB501, it's that we could not enable WEP via the card's software. This is not an omission on NETGEAR's part, but more a bug in the control software. However it's a big bug, particularly if you're concerned with security.