Is the only new function of the Intel AX210 compared to the AX200, the addition of Bluetooth 5.2?

While looking at their new WiFi adapter, i noticed that not much has changed.



While they have not listed the band yet, it doesn't seem to be supporting the 6GHz band.
As for Bluetooth 5.2, the newer features seem to describe it as the building blocks for future Bluetooth uses such as audio, but it always seems to be described in incomplete terms as if it were some kind of draft standard.


The most interesting of the new Bluetooth features seem to be the LE audio, though with it being compared to just SBC, it doesn't seem like it can really compete with and of the more modern codecs, and just seems to be a way to get decent enough audio over Bluetooth LE.


Overall, it doesn't seem to offer much of an improvement over the AX200, and there doesn't seem to be any benchmarks of it to see if they did any performance improvements.

It supports 6E. It doesn’t say it in the ark site but latest driver notes list it as “Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX210 (Gig+)”.

avtella said:

It supports 6E. It doesn’t say it in the ark site but latest driver notes list it as “Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX210 (Gig+)”.

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That's also the designation on the product's WiFi Certificate.

There are a few threads on Reddit discussing this.

For those of you thinking about upgrading your laptop, remember you'll also need to change your antennas to get proper 6 GHz operation. Not an easy task in most laptops, if possible at all.

thiggins said:

For those of you thinking about upgrading your laptop, remember you'll also need to change your antennas to get proper 6 GHz operation. Not an easy task in most laptops, if possible at all.

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I wonder if this will be necessary, considering the fairly generic antenna designs used in laptops. For instance back in the day, upgrading from a single band to a dual band card never required changing antennas (provided you had two of them in there).

RMerlin said:

I wonder if this will be necessary, considering the fairly generic antenna designs used in laptops. For instance back in the day, upgrading from a single band to a dual band card never required changing antennas (provided you had two of them in there).

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You'll probably get some sort of signal, but 6 GHz channels may have lower signal levels than if you had a proper antenna. A 2.4 GHz antenna really worked also for 5 GHz?

I know the AP/router guys cite need to change antennas as a reason for not upgrading AX6 routers out there that already have 6E capable radios. But I suppose power amps and LNA are more critical.

thiggins said:

You'll probably get some sort of signal, but 6 GHz channels may have lower signal levels than if you had a proper antenna. A 2.4 GHz antenna really worked also for 5 GHz?

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Either the antennas didn't require attuning to these frequencies, or they were already using antennas ready for both frequencies. I've personally upgraded one or two laptops of my own back in the day, to move from crappy Azurewave single band to a dual band Intel card, and the 5 GHz signal reception was excellent. The fact that there were already two wires in there (even though the Azurewave only used one) might indicate the laptop was already wired for dual band support.

My RF classes were 25 years ago, so sadly I've forgotten about everything I learned about antenna design. I know that the length of the antenna is tied to the frequency it's optimally designed to handle, however I don't know what's the typical band width that a single pole antenna can effectively handle before you need to use a different length. Wifi 6e extends a fair bit above the current 5 GHz band (up to 7.1 GHz if I recall), but maybe it's still close enough that just having proper amps might be sufficient to compensate.

We'd need an RF expert to clear it up I guess

Here’s an answer to similar question from 2012 but 2.4 vs 5 ghz specific antennas in this case:

As for current laptop/mobile antennas I agree they’re dual mode antennas tuned for 2.4/5 GHz.