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Hands On: TP-Link TL-WN822N 300Mbps High Gain Wireless N USB Adapter

By on October 15, 2010 in Hardware, Networking, News

It’s been a while since I’ve looked at a Wi-Fi USB Adaptor. A few years ago, when we were in the midst of a home networking revolution, wireless adaptors were all the rage – USB, PCI, Express Card, you name it. Nowadays, with so many devices offering integrated high speed wireless networking, the need for Wi-Fi adaptors is diminishing, but with a new breed of 802.11n models coming to the market, they provide a neat solution for upgrading laptops, desktops and games consoles to the fastest speeds.

Never one to miss an opportunity for a great value networking solution, TP-Link have released the TL-WN822N 300Mbps High Gain Wireless N USB Adapter, which wins no plaudits for a snappy name, but it will enable your PC to take advantage of 802.11n Wi-Fi with speeds up to 300 Mbps. The asking price? Less than £18.00. Hands On: TP Link TL WN822N 300Mbps High Gain Wireless N USB Adapter

What’s in the Box?

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The TL-WN822N ships with a quick installation guide, a resource CD with driver and installation software plus a 1.5m USB cable, which allows you to place the adaptor in a variety of positions to ensure you get the best signal.

Opening up the package reveals the adaptor itself, which is neatly designed with integrated antennas which flip up from either side of the device. A mini USB port connects the adaptor to your PC via the supplied cable.

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Note that there are no screw holes in the base of the adaptor, so this should be considered very much a mobile solution.

Installation is simply a matter of dropping in the resource CD to your PC’s CD drive, and installing the device drivers via an installation wizard.

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Once kicked off, you’ll be asked to plug in the adaptor, following which the drivers will be installed.

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With the driver installed, a green light on the front of the device will illuminate and flash to let you know when a Wi-Fi network is detected. The TL-WN822N supports TP-Link’s QSS (Quick Secure Setup) feature to allow configuration of the network by pressing a button on the router, and then on the adaptor itself to sync. Otherwise, it’s just a case of entering your network password to get started.

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About Terry Walsh

Terry Walsh is the founding editor and owner of We Got Served. Since February 2007, the site has provided detailed coverage and analysis of the emerging home server category, and has subsequently grown into a trusted outlet for digital home news and reviews.
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  • AZSalty

    I tried to buy one of these on Amazon and got an error message stating it was not for sale in the US?

    • Dave_Marchant

      It does seem mainly to be available in UK / European outlets at the moment, although Google threw up a couple of Canadian outlets selling it.

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    Bobby Attilio

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    Well this was a helpful post.

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    Dwight Read

  • johnnyfoofee

    great review i just ordered one from newegg.

  • tanjustinn1

    my computer's disk drive is malfunctioned. how do i install it then?

  • Yussuf

    I've got one, purchased in Lisbon, Portugal.
    PRO: It amazingly boosted my router wi-fi signal.
    CON: It's not Mac OS compatible.

  • Steve

    I bought a TP-Link 300Mbps High Gain Wireless N USB adapter (TL-WN822N) today (20110813).

    I plugged it into my Ubuntu 11.04 (64-bit) desktop system and disabled all other network connections.

    The system recognised the new USB adaptor and began using it. Initially it said I had a 6Mbps connection, but soon ramped up to 117Mbps (see below). No configuration effort was required other than what I have described above.

    An iwconfig produces:

    wlan1 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:”Android” Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437 GHz Access Point: 00:60:64:33:9C:56 Bit Rate=117 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off Power Management:off Link Quality=70/70 Signal level=-5 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:74 Missed beacon:0

    As you can see, it has a WPA2/PSK encrypted, 117Mbps wifi connection with my Netcomm “N300″ ADSL2+ modem / router.

    “lsusb” reports:

    Bus 001 Device 009: ID 0cf3:1002 Atheros Communications, Inc. TP-Link TL-WN821N v2 [Atheros AR9001U-(2)NG]
    The network seems to stable and very fast. I haven’t tested all the finer functions, but for connectivity it’s at least as fast as my 100Mbps ethernet wired connection.

  • ludande

    GRR – for me this USB card doesn't work properly.
    a) it's not recognized at the first boot
    b) if I reboot – I have a bluescreen
    I'm using W7 (automatic update), I reinstall several time the drivers…..
    still the same…….
    ludan

  • Scippybaby

    Slapped in the mini-cd in the CD-drive and installed the driver and the adapter was ready to go. Using Windows 7, 64 bit. Having no problems, but I would not recommend this solution for a long distance Wifi connection.