Customer Reviews

AirLink101 AWLL6075 Wireless N Mini USB Adapter

5 star:		(99)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(27)

 

 

Pros:
- works seamlessly on Macs
- great signal strength
- compact

Cons:
- still bigger than I would like for a laptop, but the smaller adapters have very short ranges.


I bought this because it is one of the few wireless N adapters I could find that would work with Mac OS 10.4+ . I had no problems with it. Given its size I was worried about signal strength, but it has surprisingly good signal reception and signal transmission . My router is on a low floor on the opposite end of the house and it was getting reception as good as the pci wireless card in my desktop PC. Installation was a breeze.

The adapter is quite compact though still larger than I would like for a laptop. However, reviews of the micro usb wireless N adapters consistently reported very short (10 feet) operating ranges. This adapter is a good compromise between compactness and range for Mac OS applications.

If you found my review helpful, let me know with your vote. If not, then leave me a comment so I can improve my review.

I got this a week ago to replace my Linksys G adapter. Man this thing rocks! It's small so that I can but this in the pockets on my laptop sleeve. And best of all I'm connecting at N speeds. I would definitely recommend this product.

For those of you using Windows or Mac OS X, I have no idea how this thing works. I am writing this for those who may be interested in using it on Linux.

I got this because the price couldn't be beat for the feature set. While USB Wi-Fi adapters tend to be much cheaper than their PCMCIA counterparts, this one has an especially good feature set for the price I paid. And it is not nearly so massive as the others I have seen.

I ordered this based on reviews of a different version of the AirLink101. The numbers following ("AWLL6075") are important in determining compatibility. Turns out the model AWLL3026 works out of the box with modern Linux distributions. However, no driver has been written to support the AWLL6075.

I tried using the supplied drivers with ndis wrapper. I could talk to the device, and it reported finding hotspots, but it never connected. Perhaps others may have more luck with this approach, but I wanted to let other Linux users who were considering this option that this is not yet a simple plug-n-play solution as I had anticipated due to my inadequate research.

I will write again if support gets added to update my experience.

My old Linksys PCI based wifi N card needed to be replaced, it has a wire with an external antenna and it was getting in the way.

So I saw this Airlink for 9.99 on sale with free shipping so I decided to give it a try, if the product wasn't any good I wouldn't me out much money. To my surprise it works great, better than my Linksys in fact.

In Windows 7, I just needed to plug it into the USB port and the drivers auto-loaded for me. After that it was just a case of joining the network, very easy and painless.

Some other information that may be useful for others to base their decision on:

-It has two antenna inside of it instead of just one like the previous model had
-Windows 7 loaded a Realtek RTL8191SU chipset driver
-Transmission speed is 150mbps, receiving speed is 300mbps, ample for HD video streams
-Has a 'wifi protected setup aka WPS' button, so if your router supports and is setup for WPS, it's very very easy to join the two instantly.

The last observation I've had is that my old Linksys Wifi N card would only get two or three bars for reception strength. The router is on the lower floor in my home theater room which has 8 magnets (speakers) and multiple radio frequency generating devices (wifi, cellphones, cordless phone). But this Airlink device gets a full 5 bars of strength, I'm very impressed.

The only negative thing I can say although it doesn't affect my setup is that it will only talk on the 2.4ghz frequency. Some more advanced equipment will support the 5ghz frequency to provide a better quality wifi signal. IF your router is setup for 5ghz only, this card won't work for you unless you can enter a 2.4/5ghz mixed mode or drop down to 2.4ghz. 2.4ghz is the standard frequency that everything supports.

I am giving this five stars because the product is great and works for what it is meant to do - connect a computer or laptop to a wireless network. Unfortunately, I took a chance and wanted to test it out to see if it would work with my WD TV HD Live and it does not!

I bought one of these in January 2011...it last until about mid February then died. (The problem with it is the size and how much it heats up...the antenna basically cooked to death.) Anyways, I contacted Airlink and their RMA department to receive a replacement. They at first gave me the run around then finally took the item back for replacement. Today, April 1st I received the replacement and guess what...it is dead. All in all, it turned out to be a pretty expensive Wifi adapter at $17 for a month and a half. In my own opinion, stay away from this company.

I was trying to find a USB adapter for < $15; this fit the bill.
Biggest concern was will it work with WDTV live.
I plugged it in the one of the USB ports and it was recognized by the unit
and configured itself in a minute and I was accessing the home network
Great buy.

For those complaining about this adapter (AWLL6075) not working in the previous WDTV Live, it worked flawlessly for me in the Live Plus right out of the box (I purchased both of these items together). Either this adapter was added for the Plus, or I just got lucky when I set it up.

The adapter is very small and simple, comes with a software disc and setup guide, and even has a small "Connect" button on the unit for PC Setup (didnt need it on my WDTV media player). I ran network shared video and music, Pandora, and even Youtube at great speed.

Also I have this linked to a Linksys WRT54G router and so far dont see a need to upgrade to an N router, which is a plus. The only bottleneck is my DSL connection for streaming video, which has nothing to do with the adapter.

I have not seen any downsides to this adapter so far. I highly recommend this product.

I bought this adapter for the size and hoped that it would work great. The first day, everything was awesome; great connection speed & distance. The second day the product started failing, it would drop my internet after 1-2 minutes and I was in the room next to the router (the internal g adaptor connected faster). Also when I unplugged it the unit was VERY hot... almost dangerous. I tried updating the drivers and then doing a complete re-install to no avail. I ended up returning the adapter to Amazon (which has a great return policy fyi).

I would highly recommend spending some extra money and buying a nicer wireless adapter. This product has extremely limited range, and does not function nearly as well as the original wireless network card that was installed in my laptop. The item was easy to install, but windows xp was unable to configure the network card, so I had to use the lame program that came with the adapter, which was ok, but a little bit more of a hassle. Bottom line: This product has extremely limited range, and I do not recommend it.