I went back and checked that comprehensive PDF, and it seems that IBM/Lenovo is now offering two different wireless solutions. Their default uses an Intel miniPCI card (with either b/g or a/b/g support), but now they offer a brand new variant with an Atheros AR5004X board (a/b/g support) versus the Intel 82533 Centrino chipset. If you Google for either chipset, you don' t come up with very much, although Atheros claims support for various draft standards (e.g., 802.11n), which means it might actually be a vaguely more future-proof solution.

Further confusing matters, if you actually want to buy the Atheros model (1866-6tu), things get even weirder. Google was able to find me an order page for all the tablet variants that there appears to be no other way to reach.

Next week, I'll try getting somebody on the phone who can explain this all to me. Among other mysteries is what kinds of discount is available on the "educational" models. While some machines have significant discounts, most others have less exciting discounts, typically $100-$200 off a $2000 laptop. Nothing is published yet about X41 tablet discounts, but if you look at the specs of the educational models and their list prices versus the normal models and their list prices, you get more features for the same money on the non-educational models. My guess is that the "discounts" merely get the prices back down to where they should have been in the first place, and the only actual benefits of buying from the educational program are that you get Microsoft OneNote and some kind of encyclopedia/dictiionary/etc. software.