N300 Mini Size USB Wi-Fi Adapter

This works for a system that uses Peppermint OS 3 very well. I plugged it in and it ran. No need to install the drivers from the CD that came with this adapter. It gets a strong signal. It doesn't even get warm like my older adapters. It does not disconnect while using the Peppermint OS 3 system. I tried to load the drivers and wireless manager from the CD and it just kept freezing on the XP system so I just installed the drivers. Although, XP had drivers for a 300Mbps wireless adapter already to be used when I plugged this in. So maybe you don't need them with XP. I have been using it for a week. I have 2. One for my laptop and one for my Desktop and both run well on Peppermint OS 3. My Desktop is a dual boot Linux Peppermint and XP. Now I can use both and have faster downloads and uploads. I purchased this because I had a wireless adapter that kept getting disconnected when using the Peppermint OS 3 operating system. The XP system on the same machine used the adapter just fine but the Linux side didn't. I read that some adapters just didn't stay connected if using a Linux system and to try a kind that did. I saw a list of adapters that were reportedly operating well with Linux and one of them was the TP-Link brand. I had a 54 megabyte adapter before and thought I would try something with more capacity. Yes, it says 300 megabytes per second. I am not sure if it reaches that speed as the router that I have only goes to 150Mbps. (yeah, only, that is fast for my casual emails and YouTube, I am not a gamer.) I am in another room from the router and I am getting 144.5mbps and 3 out of 4 bars for connection. It works better than my old adapter and it works on my Linux system. I am using Peppermint 3 and a 2005 desktop computer with XP pro. I also use it on a 2003 Laptop running Peppermint 3 and it works great. I had to put a usb card into the side of the old Dell Inspiron 4150 to get USB2. Now I can use Linux with a fast USB wireless adapter. Nice! I recommend this adapter. The price is good and it is half the size of my old adapter. I am not as nervous like I was with my old adapter sticking out so far. This one is much shorter. And it works better. 5 stars for Linux users and Dual booters like me!

I bought this wireless adapter to make it function on OS X 10.10.5 Yosemite since my wireless card doesn't work anymore. Most of the review is my experience on my Mac. After opening the package, I noticed the adapter was fairly small (smaller than an average flash drive), it does come with an installation CD, and the box does say it's compatible with Windows, and no other Operating System's listed. The CD only contains installation for Windows XP - 8.1, but it does work on Windows 10. Mac OS X installation files ARE NOT on the CD. You must get the driver from TP-Links website, which is listed that it does work from 10.7 - 10.11. So yes, this does work with El Capitan but I have not tested that. You can get the files using another computer and transfer via flash drive or use an Ethernet cable on the Hackintosh, Mac Book, whatever you have and download it there. Website is [...] Installation was pretty easy, using a .pkg installer. Installed it, plugged in the WiFi adapter, restarted. Once it was restarted, the program started up, I connected to my home network using their utility that was installed, and boom I have a connection. The utility seemingly starts up with the Mac as well on boot so I don't have to keep turning it on. So far I have had no drops, no lingering lag, no real issues with the adapter. I was able to game just fine but of course it's wireless; wireless will have occasional lag spikes especially in an apartment complex where interference is very possible, which is beyond my control. I have speeds comparable to the Mini PCI-e Wireless adapter that is in the Mac originally. I am assuming people who had bad reviews with it was related to human error, whether it'd be intensive interference, large distance, or a bad network setup initially when router was installed by the tech which is perfectly possible. Also if the adapter gets a bit warm, this is normal. Windows users, it installs similarly with a .exe file if the CD doesn't work. TL;DR, I am very satisfied with this and recommend to Hackintosh (or normal Mac) users to buy this if they want wireless and don't want to go through the pain of modifying DSDT's or going through Apple's Customer service. Also works great on Windows.

This is a great little USB wireless adapter. I'm using it on Linux, which (as others have pointed out) comes with a broken driver for the adapter's wifi chipset (Realtek 8192CU). It runs TERRIBLY out of the box - low speeds, drops frequently, poor reception - but once you download and compile the modified Realtek driver from github, it runs like a champ. Excellent reception throughout my two story house and great speeds (144 mbps even upstairs from the router). Cons? Aside from the buggy Linux implementation, the adapter is a little flimsy feeling (but what do you expect for the price?). Also, although it's small (about the size of the end of my thumb), it's just long enough that I have to be careful with it when using my laptop on my lap (or anything besides a flat surface). If you don't need exceptional range and want to use it with a laptop that you cart places, I'd consider the nano adapter instead.

My internal wifi adapter went down a few weeks ago. Since I had a few projects to work on, I couldn't afford to take it to the Mac store and have it checked out and repaired. So I was content with using an ethernet cable in the meantime while at home. I finally had some time last week to take it to the Apple store and have it checked out and possibly repaired. Long story short, they eventually came to the conclusion that my logic board would need to be replaced and that would cost me about $900-1200 to get it replaced, and it would take about 3-5 business days. At that point, it almost makes sense to just buy a new Macbook. Saddened, by that news, I decided to try some cheap alternatives to get my wifi back on. So I checked out some USB wifi adapters, and found good reviews on this, but they were mostly Windows. It listed it was okay for Mac's, so I decided to give it a try and ordered one. After looking on their website, and here, I couldn't get it to work with my Mac. After a quick Google search, I found a driver you can download and install to have this work just perfectly on Mac. I have the latest update for the Mac OSX, so I was relieved to find this worked perfectly. And now I can go back around places and have my wifi working just fine. I like how small it is, but I would not recommend just leaving it in there while bringing the laptop around since it does protrude about an inch out. Since it does come with a cover, be sure not to lose that. I have yet to use the WPS button and connection to test if that works with Mac, since my router doesn't have one. This also comes with a mini cd which I would not use in my Macbook's cd drive or any cd drive for that matter, unless you have the kind that pops out. I would definitely recommend this for it's small and perfect travel size, and fast connections as well. The site for the Mac driver is listed below. [...] Just hit the download button on the top. Since this is for a Mac and the USB adapter chip is V3, that's the one you will need.

This little thing is awesome! It really, really works like mad. ** I get constant download speeds of 12Mbps+, which is close the the max of my internet bandwidth. - It's very cheap cost-wise for the great performance it gives you - It's small(ish), though it will look big connected to your laptop - Comes with a 3' USB extension cable which I definitely recommend using. It helps position the device, and keeps it from crowding your laptop or from being destroyed by being knocked out of your PC's front USB port. - Has a diffused green LED under the white plastic to let you know it's working, instead of the blinding blue LEDs that everyone uses these days. The light turns off when it's not powered (like when you hit Standby on your PC). NOTE: It's still annoying in a dark room when I'm trying to sleep, but a few post-it notes helps that. - The software is relatively simple to install and use, and allows you to use other products to manage your WiFi instead. - The current driver, software, and documents come on a mini CD and are all up to date with what's available on TP-Link's web site - The documentation is good, but it could use some more detail.

I was happy to see that other reviewers had this working in Ubuntu, and bought it on that recommendation. Unfortunately for some reason, reviews for the TL-WN722N (which uses an Atheros chipset and works great with Linux) is showing up on the TL-WN823N product page (which uses a Realtek chip and is only a step away from not functioning at all under Linux.) Weird huh? Anyways, for others looking at the Realtek-based TP-LINK TL-WN823N 300Mbps Wireless Mini USB Adapter, it doesn't work so great on Linux. To get it working _at all_ on a modern Linux kernel (in my case Linux 3.7 with x64 Debian 7,) you will need to download a kernel module from Realtek Taiwan's website (not TP-Link, they don't provide a Linux driver at all,) compile and install it, modify your modprobe configuration to prevent the non-functioning modules from being loaded, and then ... it only works in 802.11g mode, on 2.4 ghz, limited to 54mbps. The state of support from wireless manufacturers for linux is pathetic TP-Link and Realtek are part of the problem. Oh, I also used it on my Mavericks 10.9 MacOS system using TP-Link's drivers. On that one it wouldn't communicate using WPA2-AES, only on WPA-TKIP, or work in the 5ghz range. ... buy a different card. I just lost a bunch of trust in Amazon's ratings, if the ratings I'm reading aren't for the product I am buying, then I'd be better off reading nothing at all.

This is my second TP-LINK N300. I got the first one for my son's small bedroom upstairs. It was able to reach my wireless N home network in a snap, AND.. it had a strong connection considering the wireless router was downstairs and at the opposite end of our 2 story home. Small light came on to let me know it was connected. Plug and play with Windows 7 systems that we have. Small and didn't "stick out" when inserted in a desktop/tower PC. When our son and his wife moved in temporarily, we had to get a second one because my daughter in law, who was using it on her PC upstairs, physically broke it when she smashed her PC up against a wall when she was moving her PC around and the TP-LINK snapped that was attached to the back of the PC. TOTALLY NOT THE FAULT of this device! We liked it so much, we ordered (she ordered) a replacement for me ;-) My stepson/daughter in law use the TP-LINK for work, and my son when he's not grounded off the internet, uses it for gaming and streaming videos. This has worked flawlessly since we purchased the first one 2 years ago, the new one also works just as great. Highly recommended.

Not sure what to think about this one. For the life of me it would not configure to my Time Warner wi-fi router. It would see 2 identical SSID names, so I tried them both, several times. After entering in the password, it chugged away for a couple of minutes, then said that I must have entered the wrong password. Not! I tried this several more times, and it gave me the same message. I tried the WPS - it did the same thing. I tried different USB ports on my Win7 - 64-bit laptop. I even uninstalled and tried again. I then went online and downloaded the latest software, which was July of 2013, a year old, and tried it. That didn't help. It would not configure to my router. The message about me entering the wrong password kept flashing on the screen. I would turn off the old wi-fi link, still no change. I was to the point of boxing it up and shipping it back when I noticed that my Wi-fi task bar icon now looked different. I checked it and it now showed 2 Wi-fi connections. The old one was off, and this new one was on and working correctly... with the error message still flashing on the screen. So it's working, but how it got there is beyond me. It somehow connected to the router, but still gave me the error message that it had not. It's working great now, showing proper upload and download speeds. Will see what happens in the next few days. I had to think really hard on how many stars I wanted to give it. I'm basing my rating on setup, since it is working OK. Five stars would be a no brainer, fast as light setup with no problems whatsoever. Four stars would be minor issues, but still getting it up and running fairly quickly. Three stars would be lots of hassle on my part with several issues to deal with before getting it up and running. Two stars would be lots of hassle, contacting the website, installing new software, receiving false error messages on the screen, and to the point of packing up and sending everything back. Sounds like 2 stars to me. But since it does work, I will give it one more star. So three it is. TP-Link engineers may need to re-qualify this one. As for me, I do have an IT background in hardware, software, programming, and support.

Good Working for desktop

I had already a wireless dongle, but I wanted to get a better one to check if the speed could be improved. After testing, the speed was the same, so it is just my provider. The dongle is very robust and package is very good too.

Laptop wifi card was faulty, but out of warranty. Tried to replace the wifi card itself but failed. Then I realised I could just use one of these. As a network engineer myself, we use a lot of TP Link products for their reliability and quality, so naturally I chose this and I chose well. Works like a charm. No downloading drivers required for me.

Super handig in gebruik.. in mijn computer plug & play. Accepteer het device. Gelijk werkt mijn internet verbinding..streaming is top voor normaal gebruik pc gebruik.. zeer blij mee!

This little wireless dongle is performing flawlessly, attached to a 2009 Mac Mini running El Capitan. The mini was built from collected parts but without the WiFi antennae. Those antennae sell, on the used market, for about twice the price of this TP-LINK device and don't provide better performance. Both the TP-LINK and the factory WiFi are "N" spec. so they should give similar throughput. I purchased this model (TP-LINK TL-WN823N) because I needed an adapter for a dead-cheap computer build. This target machine contains most of an actual Apple 2009 model, its not a hackintosh, although I can't imagine why it wouldn't work nicely in the latter. The price/performance was perfect for what I needed. The TP-LINK adapter uses a software utility/driver to function under MacOS. The software is included in the package on an optical disk. There is also some software for Windows and Linux but I can't comment on that because I didn't try any of it. The size of the device makes insertion and removal from a USB port easy, even if the ports around it are occupied, but it's small enough not to stick out and get brushed/broken. Once this device and its app are installed it just does what it is supposed to do. In fact, I tend to forget it is there. To my mind, that is exactly the way a WiFi adapter should work. The app puts an icon on the bar at the top of the screen, much like MacOS does. Through that icon, you can control the TP-LINK device independent of the other Mac network facilities. The idea that it uses a proprietary app to handle it, rather than trying to integrate with MacOS, can be seen in a positive light because it means that TP-LINK has control of both the hardware and the software. That makes it independent of any changes the OS manufacturer might make in the future. I have several TP-LINK devices and their product support is pretty good. In fact, the products are good enough that I've never had to contact TP-LINK other than to look for updates or get product information/specs from their site. As a last thought, Amazon offers a range of these WiFi devices. Some of the higher performance models could be used to improve on the built in hardware in older machines. So, if you have the support for AC/Dual Band from your router or access point, you could buy a pretty significant WiFi boost with one of the more powerful TP-LINK products in the list. The increments in performance are less than ten dollars in price. If your machine has an on-board "G" spec. WiFi adapter then one of these units will give you a very satisfying speed boost for very little money. Keep in mind, if you plan to use one of these adapters on the road (laptop), most public WiFi hot-spots don't offer more than "N" spec. service. I consider the TP-LINK TL-WN823N a good purchase, and I would do it again.