Hawking HWDN1 Hi-Gain Wireless-300N Network USB Dish Adapter
by Hawking Technology
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Our Price: $109.95 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Hawking HWDN1 Hi-Gain Wireless-300N Network USB Dish Adapter
Customer Review: A Great Product
Summary: 5 Stars
The product is very simple and likely overpriced, but the thing is: It really works! My speed is up 5x.Customer Review: Bassman
Summary: 5 Stars
Product installed and working within minutes - extended the wireless range out to 500 feetCustomer Review: Hawking Dish adapter
Summary: 5 Stars
Fantastic wireless adapter - load CD, plug it in and it works. Connection speed is great.Customer Review: Great adapter for non-beginners to computers.
Summary: 4 Stars
I've been separated from my router temporarily, and had to deal with signal drops, slow speeds, etc... Well, I saw this product, and thought I'd give it a try. I'm getting my signal through a metal wall, and from about 120-150 feet away, so in all respects, drops and horrible signal is par for the course.
I wasn't really expecting miracles from this adapter. Maybe a little better speeds, but I still thought drops would happen. Actually, I was pretty shocked. Now, I get 24% signal strength, which doesn't seem like much, but my connection speed has quadrupled and I haven't had a single drop.
Pros:
1) Once you find the direction you're receiving your signal from and point the adapter in that direction, it will improve weak signal strength. At least with my experience.
2) You can shut off your multi-directional built in wireless on your laptop. This actually can generate a lot of heat if you're in a weak signal area and your built in adapter is always searching for signal.
3) The configuration panel for this adapter gives GREAT information for those interested in how many packet drops they've had, etc... and allows for some advanced configuration.
4) The setup of the drivers and installation of the software was a snap.
5) Works on Mac or Windows. I guess this is a pro if you're a Mac user. Haven't seen anything about Linux drivers, though I'm sure someone's made drivers for it.
Cons:
1) The setup is a bit tedious. You need to understand how to disable your built in adapter if you're using a laptop, and various basic network attributes that characterize and identify networks.
2) This isn't a multi-directional adapter. You MUST know which way your router is and which direction signal is coming to you from. If you're leeching signal, this probably isn't the #1 choice for you, and you shouldn't be doing that anyhow. =p I wasn't expecting multi-directional pull, so this wasn't a con for me, but I could see how the common expectation could cause some to be disappointed.
3) This isn't so much of a con, but a misconception I could see coming from people who don't understand wireless signals and their restrictions. This isn't a miracle worker. You can't sit 3 miles away from a router, go through 6 feet of solid steel, or anything else that no signal could possibly reach you, and expect this adapter to work. Come on, that's just silly.
4) If you're using a multi-directional adapter and your signal is actually being bounced to your computer from a different direction than straight from the router, you'll need to play with the adapters direction a bit. See above (not a multi-directional adapter).
Conclusion:
This is a great adapter if you know a bit about wireless networking, how signals work, and read the product description before deciding this is a miracle worker. Go in to this purchase understanding exactly what you're buying, and checking to make sure that this is the right buy for you.
Personally, I've had this for about 4 hours, and I love it. Normally, I'd be shifting my laptops position trying to find a signal, only to have it drop and me have to move my laptop ten times before my routers signal is strong enough to establish a connection.
I hope this helps anyone who thinks about purchasing this adapter, and either guides you to decide that this is the adapter for you, or to keep you from buying this and giving an otherwise great product bad reviews.
Current OS: Windows Vista 64-bit SP 1. (I've read about some driver issues with the previous model of this device. I'm interested to hear if anyone has issues with this one.)
Customer Review: A Good Product, But Not For 64-bit Systems
Summary: 4 Stars
The software was easy to install. However the documentation is sadly out-of-date and does not show the current windows. I could not get the unit to find any networks at all, and all the frames that it received had CRC errors, so I suspected a hardware problem and returned the unit to Hawking, getting a new unit in return.
The new unit exhibited the same problems, so I began to suspect software / configuration problems, rather than bad hardware. This led me to boot into Windows Vista 32-bit (I regularly use Vista 64-bit), where I installed the software. I now was able to see a large number of networks (far more than I ever saw with my Intel WiFi unit), and after some fiddling I was able to reliably connect to my apartment complex's WiFi.
The Hawking unit works well and I am happy with it, but the software is complex, and the documentation is very poor. Novice users may have problems. For more sophisticated users, I have no hesitations about recommending this unit.
But don't get it if you only have 64-bit versions of Windows 7 or Vista. (Although Hawking has promised to look into this bug for me - they may eventually fix it.)