Installation was easy, but it does require the installation of drivers before plugging in the adapter.  It is difficult to imagine wanting to use this device on a new machine very often, but if that is the case I would keep the drivers on a USB flashdisk.

Once the drivers are installed, plug the unit into a spare USB port and the WiFi config screen appears:

The software is quite good, giving you detailed information about signal strength of available networks, and all the encryption options you would need.

Connecting it to my 54Mbps network with 128bit encryption, I was able to benchmark the device.  To make sure there were no other bottlenecks on the network, I tested with a PC connected to the router with a 1Gb network connection.

Using the Sisoft Sandra Networking Bandwidth benchmark, I got the following results:

Even with 128bit WEP encryption, the device outperformed an unsecured 54Mbps connection.  Nice performance and more than enough for most people with up to 2Mbps broadband.

Next Page, Conclusion