D-Link Wireless AC 1200 Dual Band Adapter (DWA-182) D-Link Wireless AC 1200 Dual Band Adapter (DWA-182)

Pros: This adapter is giving me a reading of 25 to 28 mbps. Not great, but better than what I was getting. (On a direct connect from my PC to the cable modem, I get about 48 mbps) It is very similar in appearance to the Asus USB-AC53, but the included software is much better and it actually works.
The software allowed for extremely easy setup in Windows 8. I used the auto WPS setup and it connected within a minute.

Cons: The included USB cable is a little too firm and does not easily allow for minor positioning.

Other Thoughts: A few months ago I purchased a very nice 8 year old townhouse which is about the only good thing I can say about this house. Although every room has a COAX jack, Comcast could only install cable TV in the basement. None of the COAX cables are connected and Comcast said we would have to hire an electrician to run new cables in order to have Cable TV on the other 4 floors. This townhouse is a nightmare for anything wireless. We were unable to get TV service to the other floors wirelessly. This also includes any kind of Internet access. I tried using various wireless repeaters, routers, and Ethernet cards by Asus, TP-Link and Diamond Multimedia. None of them worked. With The Asus USB-AC53 and RT-AC66U router, I only got speeds of .1 to .5 mbps.
I highly recommend this D-Link USB adapter because it works when all others have failed.

Pros: Honestly what's there really to say about a wireless adapter? It connects to the network and pulls in data to get you online as well as transfer data over the WiFi from machine to machine.

- Solid Construction
- Nice finish
- Pretty Blue LED.

Sadly the above pro's are all that can be said about this product, see the below other thoughts section.

Cons: - Not reaching 1200mbps.
- Bigger and heavier than the A6200.
- Shorter Cradle cable than the A6200.
- More $$$ Than the A6200 as well.
- Slow over the network transfers ~5mbs - 30mbs.

Other Thoughts: This adapter is definitely faster than the older wireless N adapters that I had lying around... It pulls in 702mbps via USB 3.0 as well as 2.0 which is quite disappointing,,, I know 2.0 tops out at ~480mbps so I guess it's not too bad really, however my Netgear A6200 gets 866mbps down which is still not 1200mbps as promised by these WiFi AC Adapters but it is better, and it is consistent and never drops below 866.

Pros: This USB WiFi adapter is probably the easiest way to get your aged machine to the newest and fastest WiFi standard.
The extension cradle works wonders to get you up to 2 extra signal bars by making it possible to mount the USB radio on the top of your desk or essentially anywhere but the cludge behind your busy desktop case.
The setup software worked just as described and has not dropped connection since I have had it. Windows 7 recognizes the adapter immediately at windows start and has you connected as fast as my wired connection would.
The transfer speeds are very good over N, communicating to a Belkin N150 router over 40ft and 2 rooms away in a house.
The device is solid feeling and has a conveniently located Secure Connect button.

Cons: I have already lost the end cap as of 4 days ago. The USB device also seems a bit larger than it needs to be as there seems to be some empty space at the end of it. At $64 its not the cheapest WiFi AC adapter but the price is not an outlier.

Other Thoughts: Overall D-link has a very decent product and the supporting drivers worked first time without a hitch. The D-Link DWA-182 device should definitely be considered if you are looking to upgrade to the new AC standard.

Pros: I bought three of these adapters in conjunction with the Dlink DlR-850L wireless router to replace my old wireless 802.11G system. We have numerous devices connected wirelessly in our home including three computers, 3 tablets, 2 ipod touches, gaming consoles, smart televisions and the list just keeps growing...we were experiencing sporadic service with the 802.11G system and extremely slow web surfing when more than one device was in use. The Dlink system is a giant step forward for us. Slow downs seem to be a thing of the past. The system was easy to set up and works well. I would reccomend the Dlink product to anyone looking to upgrade from an older 802.11G wireless system.

Cons: price is a little high maybe?

Other Thoughts: I did have one glitch, when one of the new Dlink wireless adapters suddenly quit working while I was surfing the web. I contacted Dlink tech support and they were able to help me resolve the issue in short order. The issue turned out to be a software issue and the device is back online and working fine again.

Pros: Sturdy,lightweight and really pulls in the signals like all D-Link wireless adapters do.
Easy driver install when installing via the device manager and using Windows built in Wifi app.
Included stand makes the adapter look handsome on a desk or entertainment center.Using the AC standard with its included backwards compatibility with b g & n will cover you will any and all modems and operating systems now and in the near future.

Cons: I was planning to list an only con as being usb 2....but my full review will now be in the "Other Thoughts" column

Other Thoughts: I was initially using the D Link DWA 182 on a 5 year old system downloading service packs and 3 plus years of windows updates ,i did notice a perceived speed drop while doing this but thought it was the older desktop causing the lag.I then installed the DWA 182 on my new n laptop to bench against Ralink run of the mill n laptop adapter and the benchmarks surprised me.
Built in Ralink was maxing my cable bandwidth @
27 down and 5 up
DWA-182 was choaking@
Less than 10 down and well less than 1 up
test were run multiple times on servers 30 miles away
also run using windows built in wireless and D-Links own utility.Who knows maybe i just got a faulty adapter but at this reduction in speed i just can not recommend ..

Pros: This wireless adapter performed comparably to other 802.11AC wireless adapters I’ve tested. 802.11AC is a relatively new technology still, and there are bound to be some bumps in the road.

The device itself is very sleek, and although a bit larger than a flash drive, it is an acceptable size and does not obstruct neighboring USB ports on my laptop.

The USB extension cradle it comes with is fantastic for desktop use. It allows the adapter to stand up, sticking up from the desk like an antenna. It also prevents any USB port blockage on your desktop computer, by allowing you to plug in a normal USB cable which runs to the cradle.

The actual performance when in the same room is slightly better than 802.11N, but I was not able to get anywhere near the claimed 867 megabits per second data rate.

Cons: No Linux drivers! Like many tech people, I run Linux on most of my computers, and I was very disappointed to see that there is no Linux support for this adapter from D-Link yet. In any kind of production environment, lack of Linux support is a deal breaker for me. Linux Mint didn’t even recognize this card, other than showing “D-Link” on LSUSB.

In my previous testing with a competitor’s 802.11AC adapter (which had an external antenna, unlike this one) I got better signal strength. This adapter immediately loses negotiated speed when you put a single obstruction in the way. With my laptop on top of the desk, and the router under the desk, I was already down to 702 megabits per second negotiated speed. On that link, I was not able to successfully push more than 170 megabits per second. I had similar experiences with my other 802.11AC adapter, so it’s possible that my router is to blame for this speed disparity.

Once I put a few walls in the way, my speed dropped to 175.5 megabits per second, and my signal strength down to 2 bars. This was with about 3 walls and a closet in the way of my 5GHz signal. My actual speeds at this point were just above 50 megabits per second.

I live in a large rural home, with 2 stories and a basement. My basement receives no signal at all from the 5GHz radio with this adapter, but I can still pick up my 2.4GHz signal. Obviously, this would not be as fast, since the claimed data rate on 2.4GHz is only 300Mbps. This is a limitation of the wireless standards, not of this adapter.

Other Thoughts: I tested my connections with an Edimax WK-2078AC 802.11AC router. With a different router, or a non-802.11AC router, your experiences will vary.

If you have an 802.11N router, this WiFi adapter will still work for you, but you will not be able to achieve the high 802.11AC speeds.

I used iperf on Windows 7 on a ThinkPad W520 laptop to do this bandwidth testing. My iperf testing endpoint was a dual core Atom system sitting on a gigabit ethernet connection, which is capable of hardwired iperf speeds up to 900 megabits per second.

Pros: The DWA-182 is undoubtedly faster than any other N adapter I have used, but unfortunately I don't have any other AC adapters to test it against. I suspect AC adapters with USB 3.0 support will be faster.

Configuration overall was easy, although the drivers were not plug-n-play detected by Windows 7. Once the drivers were installed off the included disc (or via download), the wizard quickly and easily configured connection to my wireless network.

I ran the following tests connected to my all Gigabit network with both a Verizon Fios Actiontec Router (Gb version) and a TrendNet AC1750 Dual Band Wireless Router. For each test, I transferred a 5GB .dat game file from a 250MB/s max read SSD array over Gigabit LAN to test max throughput over wireless I used a variety of N adapters in addition to the DWA-182 to test against and here are the results:

*DWA182
TrendNet AC 5G - 866Mbps link 26.3 MB/s actual
TrendNet AC 2.4G - 144Mbps link 10.8 MB/s actual
Actiontec N 2.4G - 130Mbps link 9.6 MB/s actual

*DWA-125
TrendNet AC 2.4G - 72Mbps link 5.6 MB/s actual
Actiontec N 2.4G - 72Mbps link 4MB/s actual

*Intel 4965AGN (laptop built-in WiFi)
TrendNet AC 2.4G - 300Mbps link 13MB/s actual
Actiontec AC 2.4G - 130Mbps link 9MB/s actual

As you can see, the DWA-182 paired with an AC Router is faster than any N solution. The Intel built-in wireless is slightly faster than the DWA-182 however, the CPU usage on the Intel WiFi is extreme and makes the dual-band mode unusable because it brings the laptop to a crawl.

Cons: As others have already covered, this Adapter is USB 2.0 only, meaning it will never achieve it's max theoretical AC throughput numbers of ~1.2Gbps. USB 2.0 spec hits a ceiling of 480Mbps which boils down to really only ~35MB/s effective.

The build quality also seems lacking for a $60 adapter. It's not as sturdy or quality feeling as my older D-Link DWA-125 or some of the Belkin adapters I've owned in the past.

The housing is made of plastic that is given a "brushed" look, and you can see maybe 1/2 an inch seems like a blank space like they tried to make the USB stick bigger than necessary to look more luxurious?

Also, the PCB portion is not secured tightly within the plastic housing, meaning the internals rattle around the housing a bit when handling the adapter. Quality could be improved for a high-end adapter like this.

Other Thoughts: Overall the performance of this adapter is still the best of any wireless adapter I've used. It seems to have less CPU overhead compared to the Intel built-in WiFi on my laptop, which solved a wireless streaming issue I had for CableCard TV through WMC.

I'm just not sure it's worth the price premium that AC products carry right now. It's ~5x faster than my older DWA-125 and around 2.5x faster than the Intel WiFi adapter, so the increase in performance is great. If you absolutely had to buy an adapter, it might be better to go ahead and buy an AC adapter, although I would probably look at one that is USB 3.0 over this one.

Pros: In an age where technology is outdated by the time it comes to market, this is a great adapter for building in some breathing room. Since it covers the b/g/n specs but adds the newer ac spec, you can use it almost anywhere there is wifi and use it at very fast speeds where the latest technology exists.

For perspective and testing range, my wireless routers sit on the third floor of a town home. Testing is conducted at the desk above the router as the baseline, then on the opposite end of the house on the 2nd floor, and then again in the same location on the 1st floor -- representing the maximum distance with maximum obstruction. In this case, it's about 50 ft away with 2 floors and 2 walls to obstruct the signal.

On both 2.4 and 5.0 GHz wireless n networks, the transfer rates were, respectively:
- Baseline: 144.3 Mbps / 267.2 Mbps
- 2nd Floor: 76.7 Mbps / 102.7 Mbps
- 1st Floor: 48.5 Mbps / 57.7 Mbps

This competes well with the Intel and Broadcom wifi adapters in other systems in our home, which we would expect for this point in the b/g/n specs life cycle. Also, the 5.0 GHz band drops off quicker despite the wider channels due to the higher frequency which struggles over longer distances. On this competitiveness alone, I'd recommend this product.

The major differentiator for this product over other adapters; however, is the inclusion of the ac spec. But there's the rub. For a full analysis of the review of the ac spec, see the cons section.

Cons: Okay, as noted above this is supposed to showcase the new ac wireless spec offering blazing speeds up to 1200 Mbps. However, it's on a USB 2.0 interface that has a maximum throughput of 480 Mbps. Womp womp. Thus, the benefits of the ac spec are never realized in this format. The only reason to buy this over adapters that do not have this is if you want to ensure connectivity to routers of all specs or you already need to connect to an ac spec access point. I don't want to entirely pour cold water on this product however, it is worth buying if you're in the market for something this specific. Otherwise, I surmise a b/g/n router would the vast majority of needs at half the price.

A few other things to note:

First, most people who need this will want it to have as small a foot print as possible. Yet, despite that notion, it's size is pretty large and sticks out quite a bit if it's directly plugged into something. It also blocks neighboring tightly packed USB ports. When using the base, it's a bit worse as it's lightweight makes it prone to sliding (including off the desk). The adapter itself should be light and compact but, when attached to the base, the base should have sufficient weight for it to stay in place.

Second, I live in a pretty wifi congested area. My MacBook often detects 10 wireless routers at full power. That said, this device performs as well as any Intel or Broadcom wireless card in our other products. Caveat: this is in b/g/n mode at 2.4/5.0 GHz.

Third, the installation process is annoying. Devices are largely expected to be plug and play or dummy proof. They expect to hook it up and then install whatever drivers are necessary. I realize the reality of using products dictates the need to often install drivers first, but consumer do not necessarily think that way. The product should be flexible enough to accommodate this behavior. That said, the push button functionality is a nice feature.

Other Thoughts: Don't get me wrong, this is a solid product and affords the user with some future-proofing. They won't need a new adapter for years to come as this will serve them well on any wireless standard. If you can overcome the size and awkward footprint (which is prevalent in the adapter market anyway), then this is a great device to get.

Pros: I wanted to give my time with this device a little bit longer before I provided a review. I was initially excited to have a tool that could enable wireless capabilities on an otherwise useless laptop with useless wireless function. Much to my surprise it was easy to setup, install and connect to my network. While the speeds are not that of my Wired connection which is close to Mbps, they were still good and better than 0 than I previously had.

All in all, I think this is a great product for those who need wireless capabilities added to devices that don't have it or don't function as intended. It also enabled me to see more networks around me than I previously did with my other laptop, which does have a good wireless capacity.

Would I purchase it or recommend it? Possibly, though in this modern era, it would strike me as odd for devices to not have wireless built into them. This device will serve older devices much better, which attributes to the increase time for me to return this review. Bringing old laptops from the grave takes some time..

Cons: The size of the device is a bit, I hate to say, 'clunky'. It is awkward large and twice the size of a regular USB drive. So it does stick out and it gives me an uneasy feeling that I am going to snap it off.

Pros: Very easy to install. I am a minimalist so I just plugged the adapter into a USB 2.0 port on my laptop and pointed windows 7 x64 to the proper driver directory on the CD and let Win 7 manage the connection without added software applications. I have a custom i3-3220 router with Intel nics running pfSense router/firewall/security software (FreeBSD). I am currently using a TP-Link 1043ND with 8DBi triple antenna's running DD-WRT configured for Wi-Fi G and N access point use only. I have yet to take the plunge into a wireless AC router so my results only test up to wireless N. I don't think this discounts this review because there will be others asking if this adapter is worth the extra $$ for use with an N router. I used this with my HP HDX premium laptop and compared it to it's internal wireless N. Keep in mind that the wireless antennae in a laptop usually wrap around both sides of the LCD screen via two separate wires. Flat out this DLink DWA-182 was better. It did something the internal wireless would not do and that was to receive a streaming bluray movie from a shared directory on my media server. It was able to stream without skips up until about 30feet through walls etc. When I reached 50ft where I also have another PC fitted with wireless N, the video started having to buffer every several seconds. Only my media center PC with dual magnetic 6DBi antenna's could stream via N at this distance through walls. I was getting a solid 8 MB/second in line site of the triple antennae access point and it dipped down to 5 MB/second 50ft away diagonally across my home. This is really not that bad considering this is only a small USB adapter. I cannot WAIT to test full AC WiFi on each end!!

Cons: As others have pointed out, it is large in size. From the USB tip to the other end it is 3-5/8 inches long. Of course I have used other adapters that are an inch or less in length. No other USB adapter I have used has come remotely close to the D-Link DWA-182 in data rates, distance and reliability for wireless N. The only downside I have is that I cannot test the new AC standard.

Other Thoughts: I believe that in the next 12 months the new Wireless AC standard will start making its presence known in the retail channel. Right now most of the really good routers are at or near the $200 range. If I were had need for a wireless USB adapter I would give this serious consideration as it is an investment in the future. As a service person I see home routers last about 2 to 5 years before they need replacing. Not everyone upgrades their entire network at once. Purchasing this adapter will ensure future speed gains when the new wireless AC routers are in place.