MacBook has great Wireless range

This "Airport performance has improved, a LOT" is to be expected. Not only does the MacBook (and MBP) use a far superior antenna layout, but the chipset used (on the embedded PCI express slot) is from Atheros, and Atheros has vastly superior receivers.

Putting the antennas in a horizontal/vertical configuration allows the MB to do a "slow" diversity scan, picking the antenna that is "best" for a given Access Point.

I'm waiting to see what Apple does with 802.11n. Thats going to rock.

I'm sure I'll replace this 12" PB with a MB before then though. Just the "gimme" factor will do it.

Hopeless, I know.

You like the screen on your MacBook?

Better not let John "people are idiots" Siracusa hear you say that! He'll call you a, well, idiot.

(Which is okay, because I call most of the Ars writers arrogant know-it-alls.)

One caveat about this: my MacBook shows a lot more wireless networks than my iBook used to, but a) when I ran Kismac on that iBook, it was able to see all those networks and more, and b) the MacBook isn't actually able to connect to many more than the iBook could. So though the reception seems a bit better, I think mainly they've just changed the software to report more faint networks.

I wonder if repositioning the antennas inside the MBPro would help at all. I have a 17" MBPro and I can tell the range is pretty bad. I bunnyhop networks at school (technically, internet isn't supposed to reach our dorm rooms, but what the hey) and my iBook could receive the signal from the desk while at the same time I have to prop my MBPro on top of the open window for it to get just 1-2 bars. Is it possible to reposition the antennas? I'm looking now for an ExpressCard antenna...

Just got the new sleek black MacBook this past weekend. When I fired it up, I could see all kinds of wireless network from my neighbors. A lot of them didn't show up on my iMac and my old Dell laptop couldn't even see half of them.

well all that means is that they are broadcasting them now because they is no way to get around that.

you mean the gloss wasn't enough justification??

I've noticed that the new Macbook Pros also have a good distance on them. I haven't been able to test it formally, or even against the original Macbook Pros, but compared to my brother's Powerbook it got twice the signal strength.

I think it might have something to do with the WiFi chipset too.

At work, we have 11 APs that don't broadcast their SSIDs. My 15" PB never displayed them, but my 15" MBP shows them all.

Well, it's also got to do with the fact that it's a plastic casing rather than aluminum. That's why the iBooks were superior to Powerbooks in wireless reception.