All the cool kids are doing it these days, yes it’s 802.11N! We have the need for speed and N is pretty much officially here, but many of our products don’t have N built-into them unless they’re fairly new. My netbook is only a year old, but it doesn’t have N in it, so I have two choices find a compatible card and open it up or get a USB 802.11N adapter. Siig has sent me over their Wireless-N USB-Pro Adapter for review and it’s not a bad little product overall. In addition to giving you 802.11N networks, it also has access point functionality built-in so you can allow other to connect to you and access the internet, kind of like your very own little hotspot!
Specifications:
Easily add 802.11n high speed wireless to your desktop or notebook computer
Part #: CN-WR0212-S1
Features:
* Compliant with IEEE 802.11n draft 2.0, IEEE 802.11b/g standards
* Supports Hi-Speed USB 2.0 interface
* Great for digital home entertainment, HD Video streaming, and VoIP
* Wider coverage and maximum throughput via MIMO technology
* Dual internal antenna with 2T2R feature enhances data throughput with increased transmitting range for all compatible legacy bands (802.11
b/g)
* Special Access Point feature
Specs:
-300Mbps Receiving and Transmitting PHY Rate
-Supports QoS-WMM, WMM-PS
-Supports 64/128-bit WEP, WPA, WPA2
-Supports WPS (WiFi Protected Setup)
-Supports Cisco CCX
-Dimensions: 3 1/4" x 1" x 3/8"
MSRP: $69.99
Unboxing:
This product is a USB adapter so it’s not exactly what one would call exciting when it comes to what’s in the box..
In the box you’ll find the adapter itself, USB extension cable, software/driver disc and a brief instruction manual.
The adapter has the Siig logo on the top and an ID sticker on the bottom:
There’s also a small button on the side that’s used for WPS pairing mode:
and there’s a cap on the top, it’s like a big USB drive really..
Installation, Performance, Comparison
I used the adapter with my Acer Aspire One D250 netbook, since it doesn’t have Wireless N built-in, only B/G.
Specifically it has the Atheros AR5007EG Wireless Network Adapter inside.
My netbook has Windows 7 on it and when I plugged it in Windows found it and installed the drivers automatically for me, from there I was ready to go really.
There is a little very tiny green LED on it that you can barely see, so I didn’t take a picture of it, but it’s there.
If you put the included disc in, which I had to transfer to USB since the Aspire One doesn’t have an optical drive in it, you’ll find drivers and software on the disc.
The software is interesting in that it can tell you some useful information about your network, and you can change settings of the adapter, but you don’t have to use it.
This adapter though does have Access Point Functionality to it so you can use it to let others access the internet through you. This is a useful function really that I think should be on more products.
Here’s what the interface looks like, there’s several tabs across the top.
You can also expand it to show the connection information: 
My network is Gigabit and my 802.11n router is connected directly to my gigabit switch.
Basically to test this I compared the 802.11g card that’s built-in to my netbook to the Siig 802.11n USB adapter.
I used SiSoft Sandra 2010 Wi-Fi Test:
Wireless (WLAN/WWAN)
Benchmark the wireless bandwidth of your computer.
The test uses the ICMP (ping/echo) interface to measure the response time and transfer bandwidth to an access point.
No pretty graphs today, just data.
Here’s the results for the Atheros 802.11G test:
Benchmark Results
Data Bandwidth : 2.75MB/s
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.
Data Latency : 1.24ms
Results Interpretation : Lower index values are better.
Then here is using the Siig 802.11N USB adapter:
Benchmark Results
Data Bandwidth : 3.68MB/s
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.
Data Latency : 7.37ms
Results Interpretation : Lower index values are better.
The latency is a bit higher with the Siig adapter, but we’re talking milliseconds so that’s not too big of a deal.
The bandwidth though is higher with the 802.11N connection, not exactly double, but it’s faster.
The SiSoft Sandra test works, but I wanted a real-world test so what I did was transfer a file from my NAS box to the netbook and see how long took and got the average speed as well.
The file is a 900MB .TS video file.
802.11G:
Average Speed: 2,526.9 KB/s
Time to transfer: 6 min 8sec
802.11N:
Average Speed: 4,711.6 KB/s
Time to transfer: 3 min 17sec
So it took almost exactly half the time to transfer the same file via the Siig 802.11N USB adapter. Not bad.
We all know that the speeds companies say you should get a theoretical at best and only possible in the most optimum situations. I’ve never hit gigabit speeds on my wired network, no matter what I tried, even with Cat6 cabling I couldn’t hit those speeds. I think effectively doubling the speed when going from G to N isn’t bad at all really.
As far as range is concerned, my router is living room on the first floor of my house.
I’ve never had a problem with range in my home with the 802.11G network, I can go to the 3rd floor, or attic and have a signal. Using the the 802.11N adapter though the signal seemed stronger, really not much of a difference there overall.
I was going to mention that I thought price of $70 for this was a little high, but then I went and priced these things and they range from $20 up to $100 and sometimes more for them depending where you look. This one from Siig though offers access point functionality as well.
Conclusion:
The Siig Wireless-N USB-Pro Adapter works great really, I see no problems with it honestly. It’s small, it’s portable and it’s USB so you can use it with virtually anything. I like the UBS adapter better because it’s not permanent, and I can use it with something else if I need to.
The access point functionality is a nice feature, you can let other connect to your own little hotspot and share your connection. It has all the other common security features as well built right in.
You’re never going to get the rated speeds out of any of these types of networking products, so getting double the speed is good in my book.
Pros:
+Access point functionality built-in
+Quick and easy setup
+Double the speeds of 802.11g
Cons:
-None really 
Ratings
Overall: 5 out of 5
Performance: 5 out of 5
Aesthetic: 5 out of 5
Build Quality: 5 out of 5
Disclosure: http://www.bonafidereviews.com/disclosure-policy/
