Customer Reviews

Belkin Bluetooth USB Adapter (F8T012-1)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this adapter to use with wireless headphones and for syncing my smartphone.

The adapter works great with one huge exception. If you install this on a centrino laptop, it will most likely crash and corrupt your network drivers.

I tried this with 3 laptops with various implementations of network cards and the adpater driver and software goofs with the TCP/IP settings of the adapters so you can no longer use a network connection. It seems to work fine with the one desktop I tried.

Basically on a notebook you end up either having bluetooth or an internet connection, but in order to use your internet connection you have to uninstall the bluetooth drivers and software, not particularly convenient.

I went back and forth with Belkin's tech support and they quit responding to messages. They told me it was a problem with my computers and not the poor quality of their software. Overall the support for this item was poor at best.

I would stay away from this and consider adapters from other vendors.

I am wondering how long it takes to get in the mindset of looking to see if devices are compatible with Vista BEFORE I buy them and try to install them??

Yes, I just recently got a Vista computer and am not used to it. Most of the programs play nice with Vista, but this one didn't... I tried installing it and ran into errors...it wasn't compatible. The installation finished anyway and I thought maybe it actually did work. I tried to connect to my bluetooth device (cell phone) and it did connect, but then it tried to install the drivers again (it must have bypassed them the first time) and it was pointless. I checked the website and, nope, no Vista drivers.

So now I have a useless $30 dongle and have to try and find one that will work with Vista.

I plugged the adapter into my iBook G4, and although the box said I would have to go to the Apple website to get the driver, the iBook recognized it and iSync was automatically configured. I synced the phone and my address book and calendar were loaded to the phone. Good job!

It works! If you use Vista pls download driver from Belkin's site. I am using this to connect to my stereo system and cell phone. Just use default settings for everything if you are not sure about certain things during installation. Do bare in mind that the more things you are connected to the weaker the signal. And like all bluetooth the signal is pretty easily interupted.

This is an excellent product! Installation and operation is very simple and straightforward (at least under Windows XP SP2). I was even able to use my cable modem Internet connection from my phone (just needed to enable PAN + Internet connection sharing in XP). Tested with SE phones K790a & W710i. Absolutely no any problems. Works perfectly under Linux too.

I bought this for one reason only, and that was so I could synchronize my cell phone contents with my PC via bluetooth. However, when I installed it, this adapter assumed I wanted it to be my primary source of connecting to the Internet and it proceeded to take over ALL the connections on my PC, including the hub connection between my two PCs. Not only did I have to uninstall all traces of this thing, but it took a lot of troubleshooting to get my PC to properly see my DSL modem again.

So, if you're looking for a way to connect your laptop to the internet, then this may be for you. If all you want to do is upload your address book to your cell phone, stick with USB.

Using this product, I have successfully paired to my computer my Blackberry 8703e and my Plantronics Voyager 510 headset. Now I can sync the Blackberry wirelessly and speak to colleagues using Google Voice.

The drivers installed without any problems.

Works fine with Linux (Fedora Core 10) and Mac OS X (10.4). No driver installation necessary for both. With the adapter I am able to manage files on Sony Ericsson phones (those based on the A200 platform) just fine.

This adapter is a good substitute for Canon BU-20, which is designed for the Canon printer Pixma MP610. However, it does protrude from the front of the printer, so I remove it when not in use and hide it inside the printer with the tray door shut. I only use it this with my printer and Mac laptop inside my bedroom so I have not tried the 100 meters of distance or on different levels in my house. I do find that there is some difficulty when the bluetooth adapter from my printer is not in direct view with my laptop (I think obstructions block the bluetooth signal). I did have to download a driver from Canon for my Mac, but not from Belkin, so it was not truly plug-n-play for me. However, I have no major problems with it. My brother is actually the one who recommended it to me since it was plug-n-play for his Dell laptop and same printer model with no problems whatsoever. I know that his girlfriend uses the same printer at his apartment with her Mac laptop without any problems too.

I did try the pricier sister product from Belkin ("Mini" bluetooth adapter F8T016) before purchasing this version, which did not work since the Mini did not offer backward-compatibility with Bluetooth v1.1-, 1.2- and 2.0-compliant devices, such as my printer. Bottomline: this device works and is more affordable at $25 than it's counterpart Canon BU-20. Based on Belkin's website, there may be a newer model available in the near future with added capability.

I am the kinda guy who will pay enormous premium for branded products. This toy I bought just dint work. Poor documentation/implementation. At some point, when I got this to work, my wifi on the laptop wouldnt work. I may try Linksys in the future, but have not bought a replacement yet.