Customer Reviews

ASUS (USB-N13) Wireless-N USB Adapter IEEE 802.11b/g/n USB 2.0 Up to 300Mbps Wireless Data Rates

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

This is a great dongle, and has great range. It is in my PC in my office, when my router is on the completely other side of my house. It goes through 3 walls, at a distance of approx 50 feet. I don't get perfect signal with it, but I get signal listed as "GOOD" at 108 Mbps, which is perfect for movie streaming, and playing online games (And I play ALOT of World of Warcraft!). This dongle should fit most peoples needs. The only downside is the software that comes with it. The software sucks, but you can use the default setup in Windows anyways, so don't even install the software. Besides that, it a great dongle.

Easy to install and set up on an older Mac Mini running OSX 10.5.8. Had the wifi connection working within minutes of opening the box.

This simple little device works exactly as advertised. We have two of them, one on a Windows XP machine, and the other on a Windows 7 machine, and they both are great performers that work flawlessly.

I purchased this device to use on my Samsung NC10-14GB Netbook with my new Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH Wireless N Router and AP. Obviously the Netbook does not have a CD-ROM, and the drivers do not come by default in Windows 7. So, I had to download the drivers with the built-in "Wireless G" before I could use this. It worked well, and I was able to get more then 4 times the speed I was getting with the built-in card. I attribute this to both the router and this device. I would like to note due to the older CPU in my netbook, I don't expect to experience the full capabilities of this adapter since USB devices do use the CPU when moving data. So those of you with newer netbooks, and other devices with faster CPUs, you will be able to get great performance out of this adapter if your wireless router/AP is also up to snuff.

During my testing, I was two walls and 25 feet away from the router in my apartment. There were also many other wireless routers in the area, even two other "Wireless N" that I could see on a quick scan. I was actually surprised to see the consistently high speed with all the wireless activity in the area. Anyone that has been in a large apartment complex knows they are the worst for keeping a good stable connection between your devices and your router in another room. Again I would say this is a combination of my router's quality and this adapter.

I would also like to note that with some simple edits to two configuration files, I was able to get this adapter working just fine in Linux (Ubuntu Lucid). I didn't need to compile or install anything extra, so even people with less experience but an interest in Linux should be able to do the same.

Overall, I would recommend this product to anyone looking for a "Wireless N" (802.11n) adapter which will run at the 300mbps rate giving at least 4 times the actual transfer speeds over "Wireless G" (802.11g). The only caveot is that the adapter is not as small as some of the others out there. However, those smaller ones currently only run at the 150mbps rate, and have less overall range. This will likely cut the speed in half, or worse. This adapter is about the size of the average USB thumb drive (excluding the mini ones, which are becoming more popular). It also comes with a short USB extension that is designed to be somewhat rigid but still flexible enough to use it for positioning the device so it isn't just plugged directly in to a port. I did not use the USB extension during my performance testing.

My Network Adapter card in the computer went bad, so I thought I would give one of these a try. Not only did it install very easily, but it downloads twice as fast as the adapter it replaced which was a pretty good card! By the way I did not use the ASUS DVD drivers, Windows 7 just installed it automatically, add your security pass word and away you go.

I highly recommend this little wireless-N adpater.

I bought this for a desktop that needed wireless N support. The main selling point was support for Linux (I use ArchLinux) and on that point, it delivered. The connection quality has been great (95-100% connection all the time), although I'm just a single room away from the router. An excellent deal for the price.

Purchased for a WDTV Live Plus media player. Works perfectly with our home network. Also tried it out on my Windows 7 PC, and it also connected with zero issues. I'm very satisfied with this purchase.

I purchased this adapter to use with our WD TV Live Hub Media Center. I plugged it in and went into the menu of the WD TV and it recognized it. All I had to do from there was enter the wireless network settings and I was connected. I haven't tried the adapter with a computer. It comes with a short and very stiff USB extension cable. I went ahead and used it to move the wireless adapter out and away from the other wires in the back.

FYI: If you haven't seen the new WD TV Live Hub (currently only sold at BB), you might want to check it out. It's much nicer than the older WD TV models and comes with an internal 1TB drive.

I bought this wireless adapter to connect to my Western Digital TV Live Plus media streamer. It connected immediately with a 96% signal strength (as indicated by WD's built in signal strength indicator). My wireless router is a room and two walls away--approximately 12-14 feet by distance--so I expected a solid signal, but not quite 96%. I can stream 8GB 1080p .MKV BlueRay rips from my DNS-321 NAS without any hiccups, something I could not do with an older Linksys adapter that I was using before.

I have another of these adapters that I use for an older notebook that doesn't have N-band, and I get extremely fast transfers using it, and 0 dropped connections. In my opinion, Asus has really produced some excellent wireless networking gear, including their routers that all support DDT WRT and some Tomato USB firmware--all of which allow you to take the fullest advantage of your hardware and get rock solid reliability, transfer speed, and additional features that many competitors don't. I've been really impressed with all of my Asus networking gear, enough so to replace my Lynksis WRT110 router with an ASUS RT-N16 W.

Another thing worth mentioning is that this adapter comes with a short, stiff USB extender which functions like an antenna and allows you to aim the adapter in a certain direction. This is especially handy for applications like mine where I am connecting it to a device in a media cabinet and want the adapter to get the clearest signal possible.

Conclusions:

This is a great adapter for both G or N band. It doesn't support 5GHhz, but 5Ghz is overrated except for a few particular applications.

Some additional thoughts on networking and reviews:

There are many who write reviews about consumer networking gear and give products low marks when they don't know anything about how to properly lay out a network (wired or wireless) and who blame their mistakes on the hardware. The bottom line is that while consumer networking has gotten much simpler over the years, 95% of the problems people encounter have to do with their failure to set up their network correctly. I know this because I am the 'go to' guy for all my friends and family when it comes to getting networks up and running, and the number of problems that I uncover almost always have to do with one of two things: user errors or shoddy cables (Coaxial to the modem for those with cable or bad LAN cables). Before you downgrade a products for 'not working' make sure that you've got your network configured correctly, and that you have functioning cables--I can't tell you how many times the cable is the problem or where a simple hardware reboot (Shutting down and restarting in the correct order: Modem-->Router-->Additional Devices for power down and then power up) clears up the issue. Take some time to troubleshoot before writing a review!

I bought this to replace an old wifi adapter that died. I quick web search led me to believe it would plug right in to a Linux system. Sadly, that was not the case. A better search, a half hour following instructions, and I was in business. I even learned a bit, always a good thing.