NETGEAR WNA3100M-100ENS Wireless Mini USB Adapter (WNA3100M)

Bought this to use as a wireless adapter in my homebuilt PC, which until recently I had connected directly to our router with an ethernet cable. I had to move this PC upstairs and on the other side of the house than our router, so I was a little skeptical that something this small could give a strong connection, but because it was cheap, I thought I'd give it a go.Our router is a WNDR3700-100NAS RangeMax (link @ bottom), which I got about two years ago (sidenote: it's a pretty darn good router). My current connection from the WNA3100 adapter is hovering around ~120/130 megabits/sec, which I am more than happy with. I think (could definitely be wrong) that's close to the threshold that USB 2.0 can handle anyways, so this checks out in my book. Plus, I never see it - its in a USB port behind my tower - a much nicer solution than the external adapter I had been using (Netgear WN311B), which was a piece of crap anyways. I wholeheartedly give this 5/5 stars - a cheap, easy, and effective solution.Other thoughts:The packaging makes a big deal about installing the software from the CD, but I can't imagine why anyone would want to have netgear software managing their wireless connections rather than just having windows manage it. Just pop the adapter in, have windows automatically find a driver, and save yourself the trouble of dealing with 3rd party software.Link to router: [...]

Works great. I have a Netgear Router (wireless/wired) that this connects with. Allows me to have my old XP computer in a second room without the trouble of running cat5 cables. Setup was as easy as it says. I was able to use the WPS feature so it literally connected by itself. I've also used this on a Cisco wireless router at work, it also has the WPS feature. Worked great. I needed to upgrade a workstation to Windows 7. It ran flawlessly for hours as it downloaded all the updates (over 100) through several mandatory restarts. The small size could be a problem for some. It's really amazing how much they can put into a tiny device these days.

I purchased this product and after two months it is no longer recognized by Windows on multiple computers. I either get a USB error or the computer is not aware that a device is plugged in. I called Netgear for support, and they were completely unwilling to troubleshoot the problem. They wanted to know the serial number on the device, but it was not possible to give them this information as the serial number was printed on the metal portion of the USB connector and had already rubbed off from plugging in the device a total of three times. I no longer have the original packaging. They informed that they could not help me since the product was "refurbished" as it did not have a serial number. I told them several times the device was purchased brand new two months ago and not refurbished but they kept on saying it was. Maybe there was a communication issue since their call center was not located in the United States and the person I spoke with has poor English, or maybe they just didn't care to try to find a solution. They never even asked what kind of product it was. At any rate, I won't be purchasing another Netgear product in the future and I recommend you don't either.

This is a decently solid adapter for USB wireless. It functions fairly well though did have an occasional drop that another product did not. Even so it's better than most of the junk out there.Software:Nothing outstanding either way here. It worked and it is easy enough for a novice to handle installing.Form Factor:Smaller than others, so for those looking for something that will stay out of the way this is good. Of course it sacrifices a little bit as far as antenna surface (see reliability below). No complaints about construction or durability here.Reliability:This was actually a pretty reliable little adapter. I've had some rather poor experiences with previous Netgear wireless, but I don't let that get in the way of revisiting a company as they all change in quality over time. This time they seem to have done a pretty good job. I will note, however, that this unit did suffer dropout earlier than other available units - but this is mainly a trade off for it's being much smaller than those so can be excused as reasonable. That said it still offered good performance over an acceptable range.Final words:This is a solid little unit, you could do much worse. If you really need a small form factor than this would be a good choice, but if you don't mind a larger size and a small increase in price there are units that net much better performance for that trade off.

It has nice look and small. I purchased this to give my desktop freedom. Which is next to wireless router.Web surfing and downloading from internet is fine. But when I hook it up with full 300Mbps N speed and do copying files in local network between another computer and my desktop, it often hangs during copying job and my desktop re-establishes wifi connection again after hanging for a minute later. Not for serious users.

Needed a wireless option for my son's desktop computer and decided to go USB instead of wireless network card. This was a perfect choice. Installed the drivers, plugged it in and connected to my wireless network with no issues what so ever. We have had the computer is a couple rooms throughout the house and have not had any connection issues (we have about a 2300 square foot house with the router centrally located). It is very small, so we do not have to worry about bumping it and breaking it off (not like a big ole usb stick hanging out)