TP-Link N600 Wireless Dual Band USB Adapter (TL-WDN3200),White

I bought this product not knowing what they quality may be. Here is my review.I use this for my 5GHZ band wifi in the house. I get full bars of signal about 30 feet away from the wifi router. If you plan to use this product for the 5GHZ band, keep in mind that the 5GHZ band does not reach as far as your 2.4GHZ band.I stream Amazon Prime, Youtube, and Onlive gaming and this device gives me clear video without hesitations and lost packets(another way of saying video skipping). It works great for my Windows 8 laptop, because with this operating system it supports plug and play. This means that there is no need for any installation simply plug it in to your USB port and get started.Its about 2in in length and an 1in in width, the box comes with a cable in case you want to mount it to the side of your desktop or laptop. To finish my review keep this important note in mind.*** I bought this to run my 5GHZ band so I could take advantage of the better signal and less interference that the 5GHZ band offers. This product does not give you a boost in download speed, you will need to contact your Internet Service Provider to receive better bandwidth. I highly recommend this product for users of Windows 8 users!

Dragging CAT5 cable around with me to plug my desktop into whatever internet source I could find was getting old. I didn't feel like installing a PCI wireless card, and wanted something I could interchange between my desktop and laptop.Enter the TP-LINK WDN 3200! I've had it for over three months now, and so far it's met all my needs, and has posed very few issues for me!PROS:- Small and convenient for wireless usage!- USB means on-the-go wireless connectivity!- 802.1a/b/g/n means compatibility with higher speed Wi-Fi as well as slower channels! Fast when it's available, functional at the least!- Haven't experienced any connection drops/random slowness.- Easy to setup/installCONS:- Thickness prevents adjacent USB ports from being used. If you have two used ports stacked (one on top of the other), normally you could fit two USB connectors. This wireless device is a bit thick however, and partially blocks the other USB port, meaning at the least, you may be one USB port short, and at worst you may break something trying to jam another USB device into the other slot. Be safe!- There is a bug in the software: whenever the software refreshes the list of available wireless networks, it will change focus from the current window to the TP-Link Utility program, even if it is minimized. This means if you are typing in a document or something, the document will lose focus and you'll have to click the document window to resume typing. SOLUTION: When your computer starts, if the TP-Link Utility program is open (or minimized), open it, and change the window from the "Wireless Networks" tab to a tab that doesn't refresh, such as the "Settings" tab or other. This will prevent the refresh from switching windows when it occurs.- Again, it is rather large, so if you're using it on a laptop, be careful not to pick up your laptop and have it snag on something--you don't want to risk breaking it (or something else), so always be aware when it's there!Overall:This is a functional and effective solution to your wireless needs! It provides speed, minimal drops, and is not too expensive. It can access higher-speed Wi-Fi/Wireless channels as well as normal/older ones. It plugs in and installs simply, and once installed it's another plug-and-play device that's easy to use and works great.

Pros:- Works w/o a driver in Windows 8.- Signal strength is very well.Cons:- Driver and utility shipped with the device don't work on Win8. You may find a topic on the TPLinks forum explaining this.- By default device runs on 2.4Ghz band and without a utility you cannot switch, it just doesn't see any network on 5Ghz band.- On 2.4Ghz band it connects as 144Mbs and gives at best 39Mbs downloading speed. I tried different WiFi AP settings, nothing helped.I have an SMCWUSB N-2 stick and with all the same conditions it gives 300Mbs connection speed and ~170Mbs effective downloading speed. I spent hours to make TPLINK stick working as desired and had no success. May be with the utility it can be set to the full speed and 5Ghz band but with standard Windows 8 capabilities you get a slow 2.4Ghz device.And a side note: all the binaries on the distribution disk are *not signed*. For Windows 8 this means you cannot install drivers. In a wider terms it means the manufacturer is not trusty enough.Disappointed, will return this device and will never buy TP Link products in the future. WiFi router of this brand had serious issues too but I thought this was just a bad model. Now it's clear that was a wrong brand.-- Update 1: The review above is for TL-WDN3200. I bought it in the same order with TL-WN822N and Amazon doesn't allow me to give two separate reviews.Now review for TL-WN822N.Pros:- Works w/o a driver in Windows 8 (though, it's get detected as Realtek WiFi).- Drivers *are* signed. A big plus for Windows 8.- Signal strength is awesome. I was able to catch a signal from two blocks away. Though, failed to connect to the network.Cons:- No 5Ghz in Windows 8. It seems like Windows 8/8.1 has issues with 5Ghz networks in general. I found many complains from different people but cannot say if it's OS problem or a bad driver. For me as an end user it looks pretty simple: the device doesn't work as declared (support of 5Ghz band). If you cannot give full support for Windows 8 - don't list it in the product description. Is it a big deal to make some testing *before* advertisment?- Best speed I was able to get at connection of 300Mbs was ~100Mbs downloading and ~160Mbs uploading. My AP's channel was pretty clear so, I have no idea why uploading is better than downloading.In general, this device gives better connection strength but connection speed is not anything surprising. My old SMCWUSB N-2 stick gives the same or even better results. I'm not going to return TL-WN822N because of its better range but when I need throughput I would give a chance to something different. May be ASUS or Cisco but definitely not TPLink.And a final note to those who plan to substitute wires with a WiFi stick: forget it. There is nothing better than a Cat5 twisted pair going to a 1Gbs switch. You will never get the same latency and throughput with 802.11n network. May be one day with AC protocol but definitely not with the N one.