Amped Wireless High Power Wireless-N Directional Dual Band USB Adapter UA2000

• Amped Wireless High Power Wireless-N Directional Dual Band USB Adapter UA2000
• Config Utility

Amped Wireless' High Power Wireless-N Directional Dual-Band USB Adapter (UA2000) ($90 direct) is an 802.11n dual-band USB adapter. USB adapters are used to give wireless connectivity to a computer that may not have a wireless card, such as an older desktop or a laptop. They can also be used to connect a machine with an older networking card to newer 802.11n wireless networks. Amped succeeds reasonably well at these tasks, and it also offers some useful additional features.

It's easy to install and, in my testing, extended my wireless range to a dead-spot when paired with Amped Wireless' High Power Wireless-N 600mW Gigabit Dual Band Router (R20000G) . The UA2000 ?adapter is unique in that unlike most USB wireless adapters, it's a larger device that can stand atop a desk or clip to a notebook?it's not, in other words,? a small stick that fits into a USB port. Its large size makes it awkward to clip to a laptop screen and it can take up a good portion of the viewing area (especially since the vendor recommends facing it in the direction of the router for optimal performance) so it's not ideal for clipping to smaller netbooks and notebooks on the front of the screen.?

Another unique feature is that the adapter has two USB connectors. Connecting to two USB ports increases the power to the adapter, and as per the vendor, can maximize performance. You can, however, still use the adapter connected to just one USB port.

Setup
The adapter ships with a well-documented setup guide. The first and most critical step is to install the software before connecting the adapter. The UA2000 is supported on Windows and Mac OS X.

The CD automatically launches a splash page that allows you to install the software, watch an installation video, register the product, install a free Wi-Fi analytics tool, read user guides, or go to Web support. Plus, the splash page opens with a charming chime sound that makes the set up process quite an elegant affair.

Selecting the install software option actually installs the Amped Wireless Utility. When complete, you can connect the adapter to the machine.

I connected the adapter to two USB ports on an HP EliteBook 8440w running Windows 7. The HP notebook already has an on-board wireless adapter (which I use for testing routers). I was pleased to see that the Amped Wireless utility detected there were two cards and popped up a message asking me to disable a card. However, the message kept popping up now and again even after I disabled the on-board adapter; clearly a little more development work is needed there.

Completing installation requires a reboot. When the machine restarts, there is now an Amped Wireless Utility icon in the System Tray. Right-clicking on the icon gives three options: Launch Config Utility, Switch to AP Mode, and Exit.

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