Home > Consumer Reviews > USB 500mW WiFI Adapter for Wardriving & Range Extension *Strongest on the Market*

I'm a Mac user who purchased this as an enhancement of and backup to my Macbook's Airport capacities. The device does do a good job of detecting available wireless signals, and the fact that it clearly identifies networks as encrypted or open is a considerable time-saver. However, there are times when the Alfa cannot connect to a certain network that my built-in Airport can. Such occasions entail a lot of repeat attempts and switchings between Alfa and Airport (and general frustration) that, in turn, prove this product less than entirely dependable.

A few other things to note:

1) You must download the correct drivers from the Realtek website -- that is, the exact download corresponding to your OS version -- or else your machine may not even recognize the adapter enough to acknowledge anything has been newly connected via USB.

2) The first product I received (from this Amazon seller) did not work, but I sent it back and upon request received a prompt replacement, which turned out fine. Just be aware that there may be defective versions out there -- but do make sure it's not a problem with the drivers before you decide the device is defective.

3) I must say that I was extremely wary of buying this product, given many reviews here by people who, despite having met Amazon's 'realname' qualification, seem to have had a very short history on Amazon and/or have reviewed only this one product. This fact still puzzles me, even as the product works better than I expected (if not as well as I'd hoped).

I was skeptical of this item because of the inflated claims ("strongest on the market") but I was pleasantly surprised when I hooked it up and saw significant signal increases on every wireless network in the vicinity. I had previously tried a Hawking HWUN1 and Hawking is supposed to have an excellent reputation, but this vastly outperformed it! It's very simple to install too, just follow the enclosed instructions. Also, you can easily add a more powerful external antenna if you need even more range (I use Hawking's HA12W). One thing to be aware of, this unit has the wireless adapter built-in so you should disable your computer's internal wireless adapter if it has one before hooking this up.

I purchased this product at the beginning of January in 2009. I have an Asus EEE PC with built in WiFi. Compared to the internal unit, I can connect from much further away, about a half a block in the city at ground level typically, and from my fifth floor office I I have connected to a site at least 1/5 mile away line of site in the cty. I am pleased with these results as they have been better than my prior experiences with other units.

The included software installed easily and without a glitch on Windows XP Sp3. I had been worried that I would have problems or a conflict with the existing internal WiFi, but no problems were experienced by me in this regard.

Additionally, the antenna is removable, and with the addition of a cable with proper connectors, (this device takes a cable with a reverse polarity sma connector) I was able to connect it to a small parabolic 2.4ghz band 19Dbi gain antenna which I had originally used for video which for point to point worked even better. You can purchase similar antennas on-line, simply search for WiFi Antenna on google and/or Amazon.

A note from my limited RF experience: Do not run a long antenna line from the unit to an antenna with RG58 or similar cable as your losses in that antenna line will be too great. If you intend to run a longer line to permanently mount the unit, you may be better off running a USB extension and making a housing for the unit at the point of the antenna. There are low loss RF cable types available, but they will likely cost much more than the unit for any significant run.

All in all, I am pleased with my purchase of this unit.

This is a really good product for increasing the range of your wireless desktop or laptop, I have a netbook and the wlan card in it is good when I'm at home and on my home network but out in public it sucks. So i got the range extender and picked up about three more bars vs the the stock card. Setup was easy in windows and in linux. I couldn't be more satisfied.

This is the only WiFi adapter I have found in its size and price range that works better then the internal WiFi that came installed in my laptop. It does not perform miracles but it does greatly improve weak or non-existent signals in hotel rooms and other public locations. It works exactly as promised and it was exactly what I had been looking for for months.