Belkin Wireless G Notebook Card F5D7010

I recently treated myself and bought a laptop computer. It's nice to have the laptop but I felt lost having no internet access. It was bought because I am going to be starting university in a couple of weeks and so I didn't want to be computerless. I already have a broadband connection in my house but instead of being confined to one space and having a laptop with no internet access I decided to do something about it,

So, I reached for my trusty friend the Argos catalogue and turned it to the pages of routers. I saw one at £40 and thought oh that isn't too expensive, so I went to Argos purchased the Linksys Wireless router but something was wrong. I then read those two important words 'Speed Boost' and realised this was for if you already had a wireless connection to make it go faster so I returned was refunded and scanned the pages for the correct item.

I then looked again properly and saw the Belkin routers which were for if you had a broadband connection but wanted Wireless now this sounded a bit more like it. I paid £49.99 and then rushed home to try it out hopefully not having to return again as that would be embarrassing. Everything is neatly packed there's an installation disc, the actual router, an adapter and some modem cables. The box clearly states not to touch any cables and start plugging them in before inserting the installation disc so if you don't see that then you must just be a bit slow.

So, I inserted the disc into my PC's CD-ROM and off the installation goes. First you choose what internet connection you have, it then tells you to join up the cables from your modem to the router. Once this is done you then plug in the adapter to a socket and then to the router. If all is done right the green power light should remain still but your modem lights and any number from1-4 should also be highlighted.

Thankfully within a matter of minutes mine all seemed to be going well. It then establishes that you do have an internet connection and then asks you about security options. You then give your connection a password so that not anyone can just start using your connection. So now for the real test I put the power switch on, on my laptop and hoped that it would all be ok as just because the PC claims it doesn't mean the laptop will.

So, my laptop asked me to choose a wireless connection my Belkin titled connection appeared and it said connected so it seemed to be working fine. I had to enter my password just to prove that it was me who had set up the connection. I double clicked Internet Explorer and I was greeted with a homepage, now for me I have never had internet access before on my laptop so I was all excited that I could access internet from any room in the house and no longer be stuck at my PC at my desk.

After about a week of having my router I have had no problems. All of the lights still seem to be flashing in the right places and the connection is still remaining steady. I have a current speed of 54mbps which is correct because that is the router speed I went for. Now if that still isn't good enough for you and if you love speed then you can pay an extra £10 and go up to 125mbps. I am happy enough with my speed now; it says the signal strength is Excellent so that's what I want to see.

To register your product is really easy you go onto the Belkin website and then click Product Registration. You then give your details enter the number of your specific item and then it's done as easy as that. You get free technical support which is also good if 'fingers crossed' anything should go wrong. If you don't want to give your details online you can just do it by post. As usual you can sign up for the latest updates on Belkin products or routers.

The good thing I found with this product was even if you didn't understand the CD ROM and weren't very good with computers they also gave you a booklet to follow the installation steps so that you could understand everything easier. The router set up process is fool proof and unlike the Linksys one I bought accidentally this one was very easy to follow and was installed in literally minutes making a complicated sounding thing easy.

To buy this router if you have a laptop and like me really want internet access then this is definitely one I would recommend. Using a router is the only way you can get wireless internet if you have a home LAN connection to give signals to the other rooms in the house. Belkin do a lot of products for the iPod so I'd heard of them before so that's why I was happy enough to buy a product by them.

If you want to buy like me you can go to Argos and get the router for £49.99 which I feel is a really good deal. Amazon are selling it only slightly cheaper at £46.14 saving you around £4 but if you want it quick like I did then Argos is still giving a really good deal. The best deal I have seen online yet is on http://www.savastore.com at £38.16 . Macwarehouse.co.uk is charging around £36 too though with postage, just search on Kelkoo for a good deal.