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| Datel Universal WiFi Max Wireless Access Point (Nintendo DS/PSP/Wii) | 
 enlarge | Category: Video Games
List Price: £29.99
Buy New: £14.99
You Save: £15.00 (50%)
New (5) Used (3) from £14.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 3613
Platform: Sony Psp
Media: Video Game
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 5.7 x 7.1 x 1.9
MPN: PSPWIFIM
Model: DUS0139-I
UPC: 897459000398
EAN: 0897459000398
Release Date: October 25, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: new and sealed will be dispatched first class next day excluding the weekend
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 headache to setup, ok when tweaked August 28, 2008
(This review is for the Datel Universal WiFi Max Wireless Access Point) If your not technically savvy then this item is most definitely not for you. Its a headache to set up, finding drivers can be very confusing and in general the documentation is not good enough. However, once set up the item performs reasonably well.
What the description doesn't tell you is this item can be used as a wireless lan adapter (to pick up wireless from another wireless router/access point) or as a wireless access point. Its handy to be able to use it for either purpose and switch between the two. As a wireless lan adapter its handy say if your laptop doesn't have wireless to hook it up to the lan/internet.
For those of you that are technically savvy **don't** even bother with the included drivers. Download the latest drivers from the ralink website (in the support section). Although the item uses the R73 chipset you will need to download the one marked for the R25XX series (it is compatible, if you look hard enough on the net the driver is for the R73 as well, even though the Ralink website never mentions R73 anywhere on its website!). If you just need internet connection leave your device on dhcp and you will pick up an internal address (separate to your lan subnet - the pc the datel is plugged into can talk to the wireless devices but the rest of your pcs on your lan wont. This is good for security but not if you want the client device to talk to the rest of your lan). If you need direct access to the other pcs on your lan you will need to bridge your lan connection on the pc your datel is plugged into, with the wireless adapter that appears after the datel is plugged in. Once bridged your wireless devices will appear as any other workstation on your lan. When setting up the datel you get a choice for using ralink or windoze to manage your wireless I had much better luck selecting the windoze option, but you may have to switch between the two to find your optimum settings. You *will* need to tweak the settings to get the most out of this adapter, double click the AP icon in your system tray and play away, most of the settings wont be documented well enough so for those new to wireless you've got a lot of experimenting to do! Don't always assume that the Auto values in the fields will always work for eg sometimes I found the wireless defaulting to 11mbs or lower, but working quite happily at 54mbs when forced onto this setting. The AP settings are bit basic at best - the advanced functions (like limiting the mac address access) does not work well, but is to be expected with a device like this. Luckily wap and wep work so you'll need to use this instead (Im just a natural paranoid :-). Beside you most likely wont get that much of a range that others can piggy back onto your wireless. Maybe a future driver may fix the current annoyances.
Once everything is up and running and tweaked (I have pcs at work and home set up for the same datel dongle as I use both and the dongle travels with me), everything should be good. With the updated drivers I would have almost given a 4/5 rating, but every now and again (after extended wireless use) the wireless will drop its connection and refuse to work, you may finding switching back and forth between AP and receiver mode or closing opening may work, but you may be forced to reboot in the end to get the damn thing to work. This may not always be convenient hence the points deducted from the rating. The product so far has worked reasonably well with DS Lite, iphone, and a couple of laptops (all as clients using the datel as an AP), and on couple of pcs and laptops as receiver. The product also comes bundles with apache and software to convert video to make it video compatible for psp and to stream it, but this was not tested. I may play with this function later to see how well it streams ordinary music and video.
Overall, I'm only happy with this after tweaking this for weeks, even then I still get the occasional hiccup (and forced to reboot the host pc). Not recommended for newbies! Partially recommended to power users, although if your needs are not simple you will need to battle with this beast before you get it under complete control! Myself I am happy with it for now; for the price and if your not worried with a long teething period, its not too bad a product.
 This is not what you are looking for! August 14, 2008
Beware! If you are thinking about playing a psp game online this is the wrong product! you're not looking for the universal you need the psp exclusive version. the computer does not correctly install the drivers
 Seemed good at first August 5, 2008
After reading reviews about how difficult this was to set up I was a little nervous about buying it. However it only took me around an hour to set up and both my WII and PSP were connecting no problem.
However after a couple of days I suddenly had no signal for no apparent reason. I had been using it pretty much all morning then when I returned after an hour it wasn't working. I had not installed anything new or moved the dongle to another location. I tried to repair but it just says there is no error detected. It is connected but there is no signal.
After looking at other reviews it appears that many other people have this problem.
Universal WiFi Max April 28, 2008
It's not worth the hard work to get it set up. I sent mine back. It's easier to buy a wireless router. Tryed to get it to work for 3 days!
A good Wi Fi USB option March 21, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This item, as other reviews suggest can be quite troublesome to set up, in fact it can be a NIGHTMARE to set up as you will need at least a basic knowledge of network connections before you attempt to get it up and running.
I'm afraid that while this is probably not the best place to say it here are some simple tips to make it work :
-If you have AVG DISABLE THE FIREWALL, you can leave the windows one running but even in allow all mode AVG still feels compelled to prevent this item from working.
-If you recieve the "!" warning on the connection go to network connections select your internet connection right click > properties > Advanced > and check the internet sharing box and select "Wireless Network" in the drop down list.
However aside from the setting up problems this item has managed to salvage some stars as once it is set up it is a very useful tool automatically running the wi fi whenever a internet connection is present on your computer. Its signal I assume is very good, as I cannot easily test it although my Wii seems to get a full signal as does my DS as I move around my house.
The stand is quite handy if not to make it look nicer then to make it more accesible to plug in/unplug, the stand also means it can be placed on a raised spot to help broadcast the Wifi signal.
Finally, price, I think for the trouble this system is to set up it is not worth 30, however, I'm forgetting the possiblility that it will work straight out of the box in which case I would recommend it =D.
Also, incidentally don't be fooled just because this one says "Universal" to my knowledge ALL Wifi USB adapters are universal ;-)
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