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As I just got done with my first read through of the CWDP book, I want to slow down a bit and play with everything I can to better understand the abilities of multiple vendors equipment. To start, I want to play with more client devices.

I currently have used several, however most have rather basic features and software utilities to play with and test. The best I have is probably the intel pro 7260 I installed in my laptop, I will say it does a lot of things that the others couldn't dream of.

I would love to hear from the other experts what favorite devices they use and why. What features do you like about it? What can it do that others cannot?

Looking forward to the comments and Thanks in advance!

Ah shucks, nobody has a favorite huh?

Just looking for a good adapter when I setup another network and need wireless for desktop computers. My company has recently sent me several asus dual band adapters and they seem to work pretty well.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

Do you mean ony USB devices, or also cards that you can stuff into your laptop?

I would suggest you look at the WFA website and look at Atheros, Ralink, Intel, etc and find actual marketed adaptors that match as closely  as possible to the ones listed as their Reference Designs.

I also like to have ones around that  work with OmniPeek, like the Cisco Linksys AE1000 (not to be confused with the newer model AE1xxx).

It seems like fewer and fewer adaptors have anything to play with - oops I mean adjust :-).    The companys don't want to have to support users who mess up the settings.

My background is in the enterprise space where feature rich software utilities are part of the initial conceptual design.

However, I have found that consumer brands are limited on officially supporting advanced features even though the chipset may support it.  Your options may open up some if you explore the same consumer adapter under Linux.  However, be prepared to spend some time learning if you are exploring this for the first time.  I would go down this route if you are willing to invest the time.

My favorite card is Airmagnet C1060 (Only shortcoming is its 2x3). Works like a charm on Omnipeek and Kali Linux.

And I like Funk Software's Odyssey Client software utility. When it comes to Linux, its always wpa_supplicant 

For client software, I like Intel ProSet (of course, your client adapter needs to be Intel to properly leverage this).  However, the latest ProSet versions seem to be 'dumbing down' some of the features and merging these with the Win 7 O/S.  I have not done a lot of researching on ProSet and Win7 features and why these changes are occurring--maybe some other readers have insight on this.   I have not installed ProSet on a Win 8 laptop yet.  .  And BTW,  Intel ProSet is free.

And I am with Sathwick--Linux wpa_supplicant works great. 

Our work client is Lenovo AccessConnections (you need to have a Lenovo laptop to support this).  It works OK, but does not have a lot of configurable client features compared to Intel ProSet.

Thanks for all the comments folks, I hope to have time in a day or two to go through it in more detail. Jobs got me running around like crazy, got to set up new wireless in a couple of small offices tomorrow along with a few odds and ends. At least I get to play with some Aruba AP's now. Next time I order some I might throw out that I wouldn't mind if they sent me some Ruckus AP's hehe. Never know what I might get to play with.