One piece of info you didn't include was what type of laptop you have. I'm not sure of your tech level, but if it's an older model it may have a 16-bit PCMCIA bus. Many newer cards are Cardbus, and use a 32-bit bus.

Laptops with equiped with 32-bit bus slots can use the older 16-bit cards, but 16-bit slots are not Cardbus compatible.

I will throw my vote behind Netgear as well. Their products are very reliable.