Why would a Secure Digital version of a WiFi card run slower than the Compact Flash version, or the PCI card? Hard to guess, but a quick test from WiFi Planet suggests it does. More speculation at the news of Sandisk and the launch...

I think there are some simple reasons as to why a SD WiFi card might not run as fast as a PCI or PCMCIA WiFi card in a desktop or laptop computer.

As Gerry Blackwell pointed out, his testing used an FTP transfer. This is highly dependent on the host platform, host memory and storage. You might expect that a PDA is not going to have the same memory performance or storage performance as a desktop PC. And then there is the question of CPU peformance as well.

Another thought that comes to mind is how do you set TCP parameters on a PDA? I have several utilities on my desktop PC that adjust things like MTU and RCWIN which have a major impact on network performance in a Windows envinronment. Is there something similar under Pocket PC?

Gerry should have used one of the many sites that don't rely on FTP transfers. There are plenty of them, all you have to do is search for "Broadband Speed Tests" or something like that. I don't know that a PDA WiFi card will ever be as fast as a desktop or laptop PC, however, the results that we have at the moment are inconclusive, IMHO.

Cheers
TC

Hi, I am Developer. The speed difference in Most cases, the SD card interface do's not allow the Data to transfer in and out of the SD Card as fast as the CF card. This is compounded by the lake of information for developers to support new products (Products “San Disk”/”Socket Communications” do’s not support for developers code). So SD card may not be the fastest on the market but for Devices that just need Internet connectivity they work grate, but “San Disk” and ”Socket Communications” don’t support any of this platforms (Home automation, Remote telemetry, Chat Clients and Device control in general). The resin they don’t support this markets as there is not enough money in it for them to sell drivers. In fact most of these markets just need Tech support. If you have tried to get tech support for your hand held device they do support, you have probably already fond it to be limiting and in sum cases just useless.