D-Link AirPlus G DWL-G122 > Reviews (3)

I bought the DSL G604Trouter/ADSL modem/firewall/WLAN hub in mid 2005 (see my review of it in Ciao) and the DWL G122 came as part of the kit. Given that the kit cost me £58 and the DWL retails at ~£25 separately I consider that a very good deal :-> .

I won't include the specifications here as that would be to just duplicate what is already listed in the Ciao product overview (I've checked it).

What you get in the box:

1. The dongle.
2. An extension lead with a 'base station' into which you can plug the dongle
3. Manual and CD

The dongle is larger than you may expect, so may not comfortably sit in some USB ports if space is limited ( I could not but help compare it with my Bluetooth dongle, which you will find I've also reviewed in Ciao). It also gets very hot in use so again the proximity to other things may be an issue in your application. The fact that it gets hot implies to me that it must be consuming a considerable amount of juice, so may affect battery life

if used on a laptop battery. I have no experience of this as my laptop has built in WLAN; I use the dongle with a desktop.

I do like the inclusion of an extension lead and particulary the 'base station'. This is a heavy lump of plastic with a USB port in the top allowing vertical mounting of this device or any other of your choosing. If you don't need it for your WLAN dongle then it makes a good desk mount for a USB stickMP3 player for instance.

Installation was a breeze. Run the install and plug the gadget it; seconds later the PC is searching for wireless networks and you are in business. The supplied utility allows override of XP control (assuming you use XP) and provides more diagnostic and control functions. I have no need of these myself so cannot comment on their usefullness. After applying any encryption keys (as for any secured network) you will be in business on your WLAN.

Performance:
I've had full speed performance (54Mbps) over my large apartment without any dropout except when orginally badly positioned with respect to a metal radiator. (I had dropout caused by my DSL G604T but not when using the DWL with other kit). So, in this general domestic use the unit performs very well. One point to note with USB dongles generally is that the ease of plugging it into the back of the PC also mitigates against full network performance, as aerial positioning is likely to be 'sub-optimal' at best.

Overall Opinion:
A very good buy as a freebie. Bought standalone maybe not so much a good deal as there are so many other offerings to consider. If you have a desktop then you may be better investing in a PCI card with an aerial extension for good reception/transmission. I think these USB dongles are best suited to retro-fitting laptops that came without WLAN or for those people dis-inclined to take the lid off of their desktop.

Note: DLINK have released the DWL-G132 since this model, so if you want proprietory 108Mbps performance take a look at that.