Belkin Wireless G Gaming Adapter Xbox Playstation Gamecube Add Device Wireless Network 802.11g F5D7330

After research I decided to purchase the Belkin Wireless Gaming Adaptor for my Xbox 360, and I am not disappointed. This product works great with the Xbox 360 and is the best alternative to buying the £60 official adaptor from Microsoft, epically at only £15!. It was quite easy to set up, the only problem some people may have is that the software supplied that initially sets up the adaptor for use with the xbox 360 does not work with Vista. Fortunately I have a netbook with XP on so I just used that instead and was up and running in 5 minutes. All you have to do is plug the adaptor into a PC run the software and follow the instructions, choose your home network from the list, then connect the adaptor to the xbox 360 and your done! This is a great product at a great price, and the shipping was fast to! Great Service.

I bought this to connect one of the new network enabled Panasonic Freesat PVRs to my wireless network.

There are issues in setting this up. The wizard could not find the device when it was connected to an XP machine with the TCP/IP settings changed as recommended and I had to resort to using the web interface on the device. The main problem I found arose from the fact that the factory default IP address was not in the subnet range I use. Easy enough to change the settings on a PC to match it during set-up, but then once your new settings for your own network take effect - the PC loses connectivity with the adapter. If you have made any errors or omissions in configuring the adapter and it doesn't connect to your wireless network first time - there is no option but to reset it to the factory settings with the recessed button on the back and start all over again.

After a couple of iterations, I had the right settings on the adapter and it was connected to my wireless network. From that point on, the device is rock-solid and the settings are retained. Connect it to your ethernet device, power it up and it will connect within less than 5 seconds. Throughput and signal quality are excellent and I am happily streaming (for example) YouTube video to my TV.

There are more and more ethernet enabled Audio/Visual devices coming on the market and the options for connecting them wirelessly are very limited. It does seem there is a gap in the market for simpler versions of this type of adapter. In the meantime, I would recommend this to anyone who has the patience to go through the set-up...after all, you only have to it once and there aren't many other choices.

As others before me, I got this rather than get the rather pricey (in my opinion) Microsoft X-Box adapter. The unit is very slick and sits nicely on top of the X-Box 360. It can be powered via 2 x USB ports from the X-Box with the lead provided (my preferred solution) or via the mains adapter.

So, what's the catch?

Well, first thing to note is this is not the UK version of the device hence you get an adapter plug seperately. This is really not an issue so don't be put off by it. Second, the paperwork in the box is not in english. Again, not a problem as the english version can be found on the CD (or downloaded from Belkin come to that).

My biggest issue was with the set-up of the device. Like any sensible(!) individual, my wireless network is secured so the easy 'press a button' option to configure the device was not an option. So instead I would use the Wizard on the accompanying CD which was supposed to make all of that a piece of cake. Unfortunately the software failed to recognise that the the device had been attached to my XP PC so I had to follow the manual instructions. These were okay but I would imagine could be a bit daunting to to general PC user. Following the instructions *carefully* I was able to complete the set up and get the device to bridge the connection between the PC and the wireless router. Once I had done that, I simply unplugged it from the PC and plugged into into the X-Box and 'hey-presto', instant connection to my network and X-Box live.

So far I have been really pleased with the reliability and whilst I have had the occasional drop-out, I suspect that has more to do with my ageing router which needs replacing (next on the list!). So, my verdict is this is a great 'cheap' alternative to the Microsoft offering for gaming but as this is basically a wireless bridge it's a good choice for connecting any device with a network port to your wireless network too! If it wasn't for the slightly clunky configuration I had to go through (the wizard may work for you) then this would have got 5 stars from me without doubt.