Customer Reviews

Alfa Compact USB High-Power 200mw Wireless 802.11b/g Wifi Adaptor with 5dBi Antenna

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

this product will improve wireless range but dont exspect anything big. i was able to pick up a 2 or 3 networks with it that where about 50 yards away.

monitor mode is supported and this device works great on linux and windows xp and vista. driver software is included.

not a bad adapter if you just need to get a little more range but if you plan on connecting to something a little further away i would get the higher powered alpha adapter.

i give it a 4 out of 5 . good bang for your buck wifi adapter.

The anttena ended up being worthless. I had it for about 2 weeks before I caught it with my hand and ripped it apart. In that two weeks, it never really helped at all. The computer wouldn't correctly read the signal it received even though the software was installed and it said I had a signal.

Bought this for a remote computer with no hope of having a wired connection without the usual complaints from the wife. Installation was as simple as it could be, which was automatically recognized by operating system (UBUNTU 9.10) to be used with MythTV. No complaints so far. My house is a 2 story structure with a combination of wood and steel stud framing and the distance from the wireless router is about 35ft. and the signal strength is between 90% and 95% out of 100, so having the higher power for transmit and the higher gain antenna for receive help performance quite a bit.

the antenna part is too big for the usb part. it falls off so i had to tape it together so it would hold. then i put my phone charger in the usb below it to hold it in the usb port.

This unit is well-known in computer circles. I connected it to my xp machine and it was operational in seconds.

I have used this for briefer sessions of online activity, using the supplied antenna, and it is fine for that. Not a superior reach with it, but not bad. It does the job.

Now, using this adapter with another antenna--in my case an +18 dbi panel--tethered to the end of some active usb cables, I get all too many drops during what I want to be extended and uninterrupted sessions of, for example, streaming video from hulu.

I've read similar reviews of its bigger brother in the 500 mw (and now 1000 mw) size: Drops connection.

I also don't know if it is supplying the advertised 200 mw as wireless monitor reports 100 mw, and my old Hawking device which is a dish antenna of 50 mw power is still almost comparable and doesn't drop connection.

So, really maybe as much as 4 stars to stick it into the side of your laptop with the little rubber duck antenna, and just 2.5 stars for the job it does when it comes to just slightly more trying tests, like being connected to a better antenna and reaching out to nearby hot spots.

Soldered connections didn't hold up, not even for three weeks. The antenna connector fell off and now it's useless.