Got this last week. So far very happy with it. Inexpensive and convenient. The software install is a bit clunky and took some patience to get the prefs right - the third party drivers seem a bit old. But it works fine after that and the tweeking is only necessary the once. After that it is plug-and-play. Once set up it seems to work great so far. I have a few older iMacs I brought home from the office (couldn't stand to throw them away). They don't have airport cards and I didn't want tot spend for them and have to install. With this I can easily share the one device and update software or use the internet on any one of the computers - without having to open it up. Good stuff.
Great replacement for my Mac Pro's card but some issues.
PostedDecember 10, 2013
My 2009 Mac Pro and I suspect entire Mac Pro line has always had Airport issues. The card and antenna are surrounded by several millimeters of aluminum and I've noticed that this would cause connection issues the farther away from my Airport. I bought this with hopes of it alleviating my problems and it did. Once set up it connects instantly to my Airport upon startup, it connects faster than Skype can open. I have yet to have any connection errors while online gaming or while other computers accessing my Pro over our shared network. There is one major issue though and this may be restricted to only me, my Pro cannot wake from sleep while the Ralink connection software is running. Upon trying to put my Pro to sleep, the fans kick up and the white powerlight never dims, and pressing buttons does nothing. This is only a minor inconvenience for me as but if you frequently put your computer to sleep I would think carefully about purchasing this. My issue may be related to the OS, I am still running10.6 and will be upgrading to 10.9 soon. I will update this review once I upgrade.
Far better than any Airport card I have. Tried on G4 Minis, eMacs, G5 Quad, Intel iMac 2007, & lastly on Intel Mini, which gets indoors through 2 walls & many obstacles on the walls to a Router 30' away, & delivers about 2/3rds the speed of direct connection to the Router. Airport cards could not even pick up the Router one bit from the same room. Using 802.11G, as that is all the Router has & I hear 802.11n doesn't do walls well anyway. :)
Pros: range & speed
Cons: requires driver install but that big of deal.
