After going through 3 other adapters for almost twice the price I gave this lower priced adapter a shot... IT OUT PERFORMS THE REST hands down.. Save your money and purchase this product.. I am so happy.. We are on the road and have to use hotel motel internet 300+ days a year and if you are in our position you know they offer high speed internet at most but you can never hook up because of all the interference due to walls, location to routers,etc. This adapter blows through all of this and we always hook up at max speed/quality offered... WOW what a difference...
I thought I would give this little guy a shot. WOW! What a difference it makes. Solid 300mbps. I also see neighborhood routers that I used to see at 1 bar and are now up to four bars. In fact, I see routers I didn't know existed. As a test, I tried connecting to my neighbor's router. He has the exact same router that I do. For whatever reason, my built-in Intel Wi-fi card would not disconnect from his router, however I would only see one bar and my connection speed was 1-5mbps. Using this adaper (made by Realtek), I now see four bars and connect at the full 300mbps. Additionally, the connection speeds are rock solid.
Regarding setup with Windows 7 (I am using x64 version), there is no need for the CD (contains drivers and a program called Ralink for configuring the card) that comes with it. First, disable your internal network card within device manager. Second, connect this device, Windows 7 will recognize it, and then use the built-in Windows connectivity tools.
Bottom line: If I could give this thing 6 stars I would. The only thing I might change is to make the USB cable a little longer. It is of sufficient length to set comfortably on the table next to my couch, but it would be nice to attach the adapter to the wall (use velcro?) and then just tether my laptop to the USB cable. This is personal preference though.I am beside myself with pleasant surprise, after I have tried a myriad of USB power antennas and wirelss and AC-mediated range extenders of all makes and models which I could never get either configured or to effect any improvement once installed and configured. I ordered this unit as the "last straw" approach merely as a desperate supplement to another Amazon order to bring the total to "free shipping" qualification! I shall describe the setup and function in considerable detail because wireless can be tricky, and I don't want you to get on the wrong track and become discouraged with a fine product.
TECHNICAL:
The device attaches to a USB port and Windows 7 will find a driver for it immediately. The kit comes with a mini CD which your optical drive may or may not accommodate. If not, you can burn the files onto a regular CD for loading the specific drivers and installation utility. However, a far better option is to go directly to Ralink's website and download the latest driver, since it is about 9 months more proximate to the current date than the one included on at least my miniCD. I had done the aforementioned transfer from the 3" disc, but when I started to launch it, I realized that it was outdated, and made the installation from the downloaded file which you can of course save to your hard drive for later use. The address for the download is included on the instruction sheet. It is the first download in the list under USB 2870 Win 7 32/64. If you didn't know that, you wouldn't know which file to pick.
The installation is very quick, but afterwards, if you have an encrypted wireless network(which I hope you all have), you will have to set up the parameters so that the antenna can join your securityprotected wireless network. This is done through your just loaded RaLink's configuration utility which will autolaunch at the end of the initial installation, or, if you are doing it on a delayed basis, you access in the Start/Programs menu. The instruction pamphlet very clearly tells you stepwise what to do to, more or less, to guide you through the configuration. The available networks will be picked up and displayed. You pick which you want and click Connect at the bottom right of the Window. This will bring up a dialogue box which requires you to enter the type of security you have (WPA, WPA 2, WEP, etc.), and the encoding algorithm (AES, TKIP, etc.). You also have to enter the name of your network(under the initially confusing "Tunnel name", in the window, and then your network password. You MUST have that information ready to enter or you will NOT be able to configure your antenna. If you don't know what you have, go to your router's configuration ultility, which is usually accessed through your browser, enter your security passcode to get on the site, then drill down to the section involving Wireless and Security(different manufacturers have different schemes). The above needed information is all stored there to refresh your memory, or to imprint on it, if you never paid any attention to it when you maybe automatically configured your router. You go from one step to the next by pressing the "next" or right-facing arrow. After the final "next", the antenna will then link up immediately and give you a connection. Reading this word by word, it sounds complicated, but it is not, and the process is intuitive. The buttons have little balloons to help you as well.
If you don't thereafter see increased signal strength, you may need to temporarily disable the onboard LAN adapter. You do this in the Device Manager in the Network Adapter section. (Hit the Windows logo key and the Pause break key and in the window which comes up, on the far left margin, choose DEVICE Manager) You'll see your integrated NIC and the Ralink Entry when you expand the Network adapter subsection. Right click on your computer's endogenous entry and select DISABLE. After you do this, your computer will default to your new antenna, and the signal strength will rise immediately. Interestingly, if you then re-enable your native adapter, there will be NO recurrent problem. There is no inherent conflict in the hardware thereafter, even when you reboot. They work perfectly well side by side. This little glitch may not apply to everybody, but since I experienced this during the initial setup, I wanted to pass this on so that you don't get discouraged. Just let the two work side by side.
One thing to note is that since the antenna derives its power from the laptop, just as does the inboard WiFi antenna, you will notice an increased rate of battery depletion when this unit is connected, over and above from the stock antenna, but it is in NO way troublesome unless you are using it for protracted periods of time, in which case, I would recommend you attach your AC adapter.
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FUNCTIONAL
So much for the technical factors.......so how does it work? After consummate frustration with previous trials, as aforementioned, I'd say it is a minor miracle! Usually, but not always, increased up/down speeds correlate with increased signal strength, and in this case, they ARE directly related. I have a two story house with a Linksys WRT 54G on the top floor. Right next to the router, as a control, my Asus Zenbook, without the auxiliary antenna showed a 5 bar signal and a 22/4 Mb/s up/down transmission which is the same as my direct wired connection. At the foot of the stairs, now onto the first floor: 3 bars and 4/2 speed, but about 20 feet more distantly into the kitchen through another wall, the signal dropped to 1-2 bars and 1.5/2 transmission speed. In this relatively dead zone, sometimes the laptop would actually disconnect altogether. Workable, yes, but suboptimal and frustrating. Now, with the powered antenna hooked into the USB slot, signal strength everywhere on the first floor was 5 bars, and the transmission speed was 16/4! If I put a USB extension cord of about 10 feet between the laptop and the antenna, of course the 5 bar maximum didn't change, but the transmission speed was 22/4, exactly as if it were hard wired with CAT5 connection to the router!!!!! It was just as effective as if I had moved the whole assembly closer to the router. The length of cable caused no transmission speed loss. I was just BLOWN AWAY!
I've rebooted the computer several times, attached and disconnected the antenna, disabled and renabled the power antenna, same with the integrated adapter, in the Device manager, disconnected and reconnected the antenna electronically on the computer, and everything behaved exactly as expected, with the same excellent results, so the configuration seems absolutely stable with both LAN devices enabled. That is important if you don't plan to take your power antenna with you which is generally unnecessary in most Wi-FI hotspots. But if you want the spiffiest downloading, you can pack this eminently portable antenna and its cable into your laptop carrying case. It's about 11 inches long with the antennae attached and extended to lie in flat configuration(you'd have them somewhat elevated like rabbit ears for best function), and if that doesn't fit in your bag, you can easily unscrew the antennae(2 of them) from the small chassis, so it should stow easily. There is a flickering blue light on the chassis to show that it is powered and working. You can also see the menus of the respective pickups of the native and auxilliary adapters in the WiFi folder accessible from your system tray on the taskbar. For example, as I write this review, that readout shows, on the same list, both adapters, one with one bar, and one with 5!
As all of this sells for less than $20, this clearly shows you actually can get MORE than what you pay for, and that, very occasionally, the aphorism that something that seems too good to be true does not apply!!! Yes, rare indeed.
This little unit has turned a useful but previously dead or very sluggish spot for laptop use in my home with respect to online access, into a crisp, unadulterated, efficient reception point. The only small price you pay for that is that you have to attach a piece of hardware to your computer rather than have the signal amplified by a repeater, but I have found attempts with the latter universally disappointing or abject failures. If you have several dead points in your house or designated work area, and you don't want to pick up your antenna and move it each time, for the negligible cost of this unit, buy an antenna for each location that you can just plug into your laptop. Of course, you will have to go through the simple configuration process for each unit which does not have to be repeated once the installation and configuration is initially made. I' d say that is way overkill, but is an option, if circumstances apply in any individual situation.
In the interest of disclosure for such a rave review, I have absolutely no connection with the company that makes this device, and had never even heard of it before I almost stumbled on it when browsing through Amazon. NO conflict of interest.
BOTTOM LINE: If you have the need to boost your reception at a desired usage site, either because you have NO connection or suboptimal performance from a weak connection, look no further. This will do the job unless you have 3 feet of Krell steel between the laptop's location and your router! You WILL NOT be disappointed, provided you follow the easy directions to configure the antenna with a secured network. This review applies to Win 7; I have no experience with its function on MAC and can not endorse or criticize it on that platform.
Good luck and happy surfing! I hope this helps you with your decision making.This wifi adapter is great!! It made a one bar signal go to a five bar signal. The 1W of power is what makes the difference. You can remove the antennas and add stronger ones if you wanted. They make stronger ones but for the performance for the money aspect you cant go wrong with this...This adapter works in linux using the rt28*usb driver it is plug and play, it does see more networks then the wifisky 1500, both adapters can be put into monitor mode, and injection does work in both ubuntu and backtrack. Using ubuntu 12.04 adapter works flawless using the rt2800usb driver. they do also include a link to download the drivers, along with a mini disk. Well worth the price. shipping was 1/2 the price of the adapter but is put in a box to keep from getting damaged. On a side note the link for the driver is a .dmg file (mac disk image).
local stores sell adapters for 40-50 dollars. This adapter ended up costing 27.32 and works better then the wusb100 v.2 that cost 42.50 I have placed all 3 adapters in the same spot and this adapter sees more networks with higher gain on all networks.
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