Trendnet Wireless N Gaming Adapter for PlayStation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii

I purchased this for one reason, it was an "N" band adapter that could be used on the XBox 360 and was less expensive than the Microsoft "N" adapter. I wanted "N" band as I'm looking to use my XBox to stream music and videos in addition to playing games. If that's your goal skip this adapter and get the Microsoft N adapter, sure you'll spend a few more dollars but, as they say, you get what you pay for.

I have now been able to do side-by-side comparison on these two and can provide a summary of my experience. For full disclosure I'm using D-Link DIR-655 router with my set-up.

First, the good on this adapter:

- It will work on the XBox 360 (note comments below on performance, or lack thereof)
- It looks good with status lights to show connectivity
- It costs less than Microsoft's "N" band adapter


However, let's look at the not so good aspects of this adapter:

- Your connection rate will be MUCH less than if you used the Microsoft N adapter. With the Trendnet adapter my connection speed (as measured by the XBox network test) was just barely passable for TV. With the Microsoft's adapter I registered a full connection on the graph, now suitable for TV as well as HDTV! I also used my router's administrative status to get the actual hard reading, a 70-90 rate for Trendnet, 220-240 for Microsoft's adapter, that's a HUGE difference.

- You may need to make some changes to your router, I did. I had my router set for AES "Cipher Type", by default the Trendnet required "TKIP". I made change to my router, but later found I could login to the adapter's administrative set-up and change this - however this is not an option when you go into the configuration screen the first time so you have to change your router to support TKIP. Time spent debugging the problem with Trendnet adapter 15 minutes, no time required with Microsoft's adapter.

- You will need to set-up the Trendnet adapter using your PC, first installing the adapter set-up software, then configuring the adapter. I have 20 years of PC experience and given my set-up it was not as straight forward as I would have liked. I continued to run into problems where my IP address for the adapter wouldn't show up in on my router status screen (it showed as 0.0.0.0 - that's not right). I had to reset my router to get the IP address to show up. I found that I had to do this several other times over several days as it would revert to 0.0.0.0. I called Trendnet, they connected into my router remotely, they had no answers or suggestions. By comparison, I plugged in the Microsoft adapter to my XBox 360, selected my wireless network and entered my WPA password. Time spent setting up and debugging the Trendnet was 30 minutes, time with Trendnet Tech another 30 minutes. Using Microsoft's adapter was about 1 minute.

- The Trendnet is advertised as "N" band, however my router only recognized it as "802.11g"("G" band only). All other "N" band adapters on my system (3 others, now 4 including Microsoft's) all register as "802.11n (2.4GHz)". I asked Trendnet's tech support why this would not show as "N". I found their response to be quite interesting. Per the tech support, they tested the speed in their lab and achieved "N" band speeds, they therefore classified this as "N" band. This seems strange that they make their designation based on speed and this is not recognized as "N" band by my router, nor is speed anywhere near the "N" dual band that Microsoft's adapter provides. As noted above, Microsoft's adapter is properly recognized as "802.11n (2.4GHz)".

- You'll also need to have an additional A/C plug for the Trendnet adapter. With Microsoft's adapter it's powered by your XBox only.


My conclusion:

If you are looking for an adapter for gaming only (no streaming of music or videos), then this may be an adapter to look at.

If you are buying this to stream music and videos on network devices, based on my experience with sub-par network speeds (and not registering as an "N" band adapter), I'd look at other adapters.

If you are looking to use on XBox 360, go with Microsoft's product, you'll save yourself a lot of time and frustration, will easily justify the additional $$ to get Microsoft's "N" band adapter.