Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Connect it to your Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS) to create two wireless networks!, June 26, 2008
I have several wireless devices in my apartment. If it requires WiFi access and was released within the past 3 years, chances are; I own it. I'm not bragging - just trying to explain my predicament.
1x PS3 on 802.11G
1x Xbox 360 on 802.11G
1x Tivo Series2 DVR on 802.11B
1x 2008 Mac Pro workstation on 802.11 Draft-N
1x iBook G4 on 802.11G
1x iPhone on 802.11G
*1x Apple TV on 802.11 Draft-N*
All was relatively fine and dandy on 2.4Ghz mixed mode 802.11B/G/N until I got the Apple TV. I live in a high rise and, I guess, all the other wireless networks (I'm picking up 25+), telephones, etc, were taking their toll on my poor 2.4Ghz network.So much so that I couldn't stream movies (and even music) from my Mac Pro to my ATV.
Switching my AEBS to 5Ghz "N-Only" mode fixed all that instantaneously. Unfortunately, it was at the expense of all of my wireless products that weren't capable of 802.11N at 5Ghz.
In comes the Asus pocket WAP.
I wanted to see if I could set up a 2nd wireless network for my G and B products, though I still wanted them (notably the Tivo, iBook and iPhone) to be able to communicate with my Mac-Pro. After connecting it to my iBook (ethernet and USB), punching the IP in my web browser, switching the Asus to "Access Point", changing the IP to DHCP and applying the appropriate security settings, I was up and running with a secondary wireless network for my B/G products. Best of all, because it draws power from a USB port, I didn't lose a power socket. This was a major selling point for me.
I later connected the Asus to an available port on my AEBS, and the USB power adapter to the AEBS USB port. I'll later be adding a USB hub to free up the USB port to add more devices.
PROS:
-Compact
-Easy setup
-Good, stable connection
-Can draw power from USB or included power adapter.
CONS:
-Blue status lights are bright.
-USB power cable could be longer, though that's nothing a USB hub can't resolve.
I'll try and tack on a setup video to this review, later, if I can.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally I don't have to worry if it will work with any OS., January 17, 2009
My main reason for getting this was because I had trouble getting certain devices to work with Vista 64 Bit. I had a USB wifi stick that worked great under XP, but was unstable in Vista. So I didn't want to get another USB device and be disappointed when I upgrade my system again. Well this device does it all and I'd definitely would get more of these if I need to hook it up to anything else.
The coolest part is that you can have it hooked to your computer via ethernet and in the same time allow other devices to piggyback on it via wifi on the same connection. So why would this be useful? Well let's say you are in a hotel and paying for wireless internet service and you could share that connection with your friends or coworkers by connecting to your device. So you can pretty much split the bill amongst each other instead of each of you paying for your own connection. Another way it can be used is to give your home pc a wireless connection and in the same time expand the range of your wifi by becoming a repeater in the same time (hotspot mode).
I do want to note that if you set it to repeater mode only then you can't get internet with ethernet. So if you want a hybrid mode then hotspot mode is the best way to go and plus you don't need to fiddle with ip addresses. You can switch it to bridge mode, but it makes it harder to switch to other networks if your ip changes. The device's ip is 192.168.1.220 and let's say you connect to a host with an ip address of 128.5.6.1. Well what happens is the ip will change in bridge mode (example 128.5.6.34) and you won't be able to connect to the device (current ip of device 192.168.1.220) unless you change the device's ip to match the current ip address range (128.5.6.x). In hotspot mode the ip is assigned to the device only and your ip will remain in the same range as the device (so instead of becoming 128.5.6.134, you would become 192.168.1.220). So hotspot mode makes it easier for you to hop on to other networks without having to reset the box.
The downside of being in hotspot mode vs. bridge mode is that you are sharing your internet connection via wifi, but of course you can password protect it (up to WPA2), mac filter it, and even make the SID invisible. You might also want to disable the firewall in the device if you are already connecting to another router with a firewall already enabled.
It seems to have great network stability and solid bandwidth control. What I mean is that I don't notice and dropped connections and it seems to handle gaming or online videos like if I was hardwired. I can't speak on reliability because I haven't had it long enough, but I can't say I had any problems with other Asus products before.
The device does come with a short ethernet cable and usb cable. The usb cable is used to only power the device instead of using the AC adapter. Why use the USB cable instead of the AC adapter? Well depending on your system the USB power usually gets shut off when you turn the computer off, so the device is only on when your computer is on. Now I have built in USB ports and I also expanded my system using PCI Cards with USB ports. I noticed the PCI USB ports turn off completely while my built in ports stay powered on even though I turned my computer off. So I used a USB extender to reach the PCI card and this way the device turns itself off when not in use. Of course you would only want to do this if you are using it as in bridge mode or hotspot bridge mode. If you need to share your connection at all times then obviously AC adapter would be the best choice.
Once the device is setup then you can hook it up to a PS3 or XBOX360 or any other device that has an ethernet port and make it wireless.
So to sum it all up you can use this as a repeater, gateway, bridge, or hotspot which is like a hybrid bridge with a repeater / gateway compatibility. I was thinking about getting the D-Link DWL-G730AP, but then I saw a rebate for this and took the chance on Asus which I am glad I did and I think it is a very cool device. I'd actually give this 4.5 stars because the manual is very basic and really doesn't cover everything that can be done with this device. It isn't hard to setup and if you have some wireless know how then you can do some complex things with it as well.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great High Bandwidth Wi-fi Adapter for Netflix HD Streaming, December 25, 2008
I only use this device for wi-fi adapter, so I can't comment for the device's other features (gateway, ap, and repeater)
I was looking for a wi-fi ethernet adapter for my Samsung BD-P2550 blu-ray player and I came across of two devices, Asus WL-330GE and Linksys WGA-54G.
I am glad I picked Asus WL-330GE because I heard Linksys WGA-54G had issues supporting high bandwidth data for the Netflix HD streaming.
So far I am happy with Asus WL-330GE. I got my Netflix HD and SD streaming at their highest quality without any issue. Well, at first I had issues when I set the encryption security to WEP and WPA2. With WEP, somehow I couldn't get any connection at all. With WPA2, I have to reset Asus WL-330GE 2-3 times per movie.
After switching the encryption to WPA, everything is fine.
The manual sucks for sure. The learning curve for non-techie users to setup this device is quite high. And don't expect to get help from customer service.
Some people don't like the bright blue LED, and some people like it. I have no opinion on this since I put WL-330GE behind my blu-ray player and I can't see the LED anyway.
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