I've never found WiFi to be consistently reliable, even when properly set up
and I hold my tablet or phone very close. It should not be like that but for
reliable service I find a cabled connection is the best by far.

I agree with that, but, I will say, unfortunately, on my XP laptop, I
cant tell you a time its not connected. Its about as reliable as
wireless can be - and its on a older Gateway even.

Just as an aside- Ive stopped using any linksys for myself and any
clients. If they as - its Netgear all the way. Linksys out of the box
has more trouble since cisco took over.

brutally true, Linsys has become garbage since there falling to Cisco,
though Cisco made them to began with, just seems as they are pushing the
6500/7600 line of commercial routers. The last one I had was a 5600 for
10K$. Now I use cables to go where I need to, otherwise I am tethered to the
cell while on the road. yes I have wireless still in the house, but it is
only used for devices like the ipod touch Wii, Xbox etc.

Interesting. My primary computer has its second birthday this month, and it has
never been connected by cable. Wifi has not been an issue, other than the need
to reboot the router about once a week. There are seven other wifi devices (two
phones, three laptops, two desktops) in the house, and no complaints.

I've seen wireless working perfectly too, and also seen users with
endless problems with wireless connectivity. Trying to track down a
source of interference can be a long job and what works for one will
not necessarily work for others :-( Suffice to say, if you are having
wireless connectivity problems it can be very frustrating and time
consuming sorting it out !!