NETGEARA6100-100PES AC600 802.11ac Dual Band (150/433 Mbps) Wi-Fi USB Mini Adapter, Black

I built myself a new desktop PC a few days ago, finally moving back from laptops/all-in-ones, mainly for work purposes. I got an affordable WiFi adaptor and found my internet right down at standard Broadband speeds (5Mbps or so), which was frustrating. After upgrading to this thing, though, it shot up to the kind of speed I'd expect from my fibre connection, and about a third faster than any of my laptops or all-in-one computers reached.If I use the dock and cable and sit this thing on my desk, I get around 35Mbps from speedtest.net. That's right - it comes with a desktop dock, so you can move it away from all the interference your computer will cause and get maximum results. In desktop mode it also unfolds and extends if you need to squeeze a little extra speed out of it. I keep it folded up as it looks much nicer and tidier on my desk that way, but unfolding it does grant me a couple of extra Mbps if I'm in a squeeze (let's be honest, that's not often).If you're using a laptop and don't want to use the desktop dock, unfolded it'll sit at a decent distance from it to cut down on interference, but to be fair most laptops have built in WiFi these days, so you're more likely going to be using this on a desktop. To be honest, you need to use the desktop dock, because it's a little wideand plugged into a tower you'll find it ends up pointing sideways and obscuring the neighbouring USB ports, but the option is there if you really don't want it to be sitting on your desk.Sorted out all my WiFi problems and then some! Nice one guys!Also, I can confirm this is working like a charm on Windows 10 - UPDATE! After just under a month of use, one day I turned my PC on and it just didn't want to connect to the internet. After a lot of trial and error and frustration, the solution was to completely remove all traces of NetGear's drivers and just let Windows 10 do it's thing. In other words - IF YOU WANT THIS THING TO WORK WELL ON WINDOWS 10, DO NOT INSTALL THE SOFTWARE! JUST PLUG IT IN AND LET WINDOWS DO THE REST. NetGear's own software can cause conflict in Windows 10, but Windows 10 already has its own drivers etc to handle it for you.

To get the full benefit of this, Netgear's A6210 Wi-Fi adapter, you'll need a PC with a USB 3.0 port, as USB 2.0 ports aren't fast enough to carry the data at full wireless `ac' speeds. You can still use this adapter in a USB 2.0 port, you'll just be limited to a transfer speed of 480 Mbps, at best; compare that to the fastest theoretical transfer speed for wireless `ac' of 1300 Mbps and you'll see the difference. However, it would still be faster than wireless `n', which transfers at a top speed of 300 Mbps, and far faster than wireless `g', which maxes out at 54 Mbps, so it might still be worth it, as long as you have a router capable of supporting it.On that subject, I'd also mention that, although wireless `ac' can transfer data at 1300 Mbps, USB `ac' adaptor technology seems currently to limit their speeds to 867 Mbps, so even using this adapter with a full-fat `ac' router will only get you speeds of 867 Mbps, regardless of what the router is capable of.The A6210 is a fairly chunky slab of black plastic with only a light-up WPS button on the side to give any indication that it's on and working. Unlike last year's A6200 - which hinged near to the USB port, allowing the adapter to stick upwards rather than outwards - the A6210 is hinge-less, so it sticks out of my Dell laptop like a bit of a carbuncle. There's a very real danger that it'll get knocked out (or, worse, broken off) if I'm not careful with it.There's not a lot in the box with the A6210, aside from an installation CD, a few paper manuals and a blocky desk dock with a 2.5' USB 3.0 cable. The A6210 has a built-in antenna, but, nicely, this has been incorporated into the body of the adapter on a hinge - to extend it, all you do is to bend the antenna upwards. This means that you can have it extended or retracted as you please, going from one to the other with the absolute minimum of fuss. I had wondered how much difference the antenna would make in daily use, but extending seems to produce a more stable signal, if not a faster one.Setting up the A6210 with my PC proved straightforward enough and Windows 10 began using the adapter within a few moments of me plugging it in, once I'd trawled through the control panel options to disable the internal Wi-Fi card. The included Genie software gives you some limited control of the adapter's functionality, but it absolutely nothing that you can't do through Windows, so my advice would be not to bother installing it.Once set up, connected to the faster 5 GHz band from a single room away and using the `LAN Speed Test' network speed test program, I achieved download speeds of about 175 Mbps and upload speeds of around 120 Mbps. From within the same room, the speeds only went to 190 and 150 Mbps, respectively. In each case the test was made using a transfer of a 50 MB file, so larger files would almost certainly do better whilst smaller ones would be the opposite. A connection to the 2.4 GHz band from two rooms away produced average download speeds of 130 Mbps and upload speeds of about 75 Mbps. From a single room away, these speeds increased to 160 and 95 Mbps.Using the adapter with its included dock, positioned above and away from my PC, proved better, with a more stable signal and slightly higher achieved speeds, although still nowhere near the quoted maximums. From my results, I'd surmise that the 300 / 867 Mbps (2.4 / 5 GHz bands) maximum transfer speeds are the best one could possibly achieve under the very best test situations, and the average user in average circumstances won't get anything like that.I own various other wireless adapters, ranging from simple plastic slab ones to one with an antenna and another that looks like a mini pyramid. They may appear quite different, but in my tests it's been surprising to see just how similarly they perform and how little affect their shape has on the quality and speed of the Wi-Fi signal they capture. In the case of the A6210, it's proved to be a solid and (so far) reliable adapter, just not an overly fast one; just bear in mind that it's my only `ac' adapter, so I can't say if better speeds would be achieved using other adapters, or if the ones I saw are about normal.