Cheapest or Smallest or Both?

By Eric Griffith

http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/news/article.php/1446871/Cheapest-or-Smallest-or-Both.htm (Back to article)

Computer motherboard maker PC Wave of Fremont, CA, entered the WLAN business this week. The company launched its Wireless Networking Division by announcing the WU-221, a wireless USB adapter they claim is the world's smallest.

The $59.95 WU-221 measures 5.5x3.1x0.7 inches and weighs about one ounce. It also has a small plastic antenna that must be flipped up. By contrast, SMC's latest small USB WLAN adapter, the EZ Connect SMC26664W, which we recently reviewed, is slightly smaller at 2.25 x 3.25 x 1 inches; it also weighs over an ounce, and has an integrated antenna. But it's also almost twice the price at $110.

The WU-221 will support the usual litany of features of a 802.11b product: 64- and 128-bit wired equivalent privacy (WEP) encryption, ad-hoc and infrastructure modes, DSSS modulation, plus it sports a range of up to 1000 feet out doors and 265 feet indoors. The adapter uses USB 1.1, and is supported by Windows 98/ME/2000/XP.

PC Wave says it will be rolling out a PC Card, access point, and broadband router in the near future.

PC Wave is shooting for value, pricing wireless products, as they say, for "mass adoption." The WU-221 will also be sold to OEMs in mass quantities for $49.95.