I found myself in need of a USB wireless adapter again, but wanted to get an N 300 adapter instead of an N150 adapter. I still wanted it to work as well as the Medialink USB adapter I previously reviewed. I decided to purchase the TP-Link TL-WN822N. The reviews on Amazon.com indicated this was an Atheros chipset, but the one I received was a Raylink. Apparently, there are three versions of this device and only version 1 and version 2 use Atheros.
The TL-WN822N was automatically detected on Ubuntu 12.04, 12.10, 13.04 and 13.10 (development release). I was disappointed though since it never achieved speeds above 150Mb/s. Though it never went below 150Mb/s so there is a chance that the speed is not being accurately updated.
The device does have two antennas and it should have greater range than the Medialink, but I have not put that to the test yet. I will write an update in the near future after the devices have been in used for a while.
The TL-WN822N is using a different chipset and driver, so I will have to research why the device is not achieving higher speeds.
rt2800usb – Medialink
Device 003: ID 148f:3070 Ralink Technology, Corp. RT2870/RT3070 Wireless Adapter
150 Mb/s
TP-Link TL-WN822N
Device 002: ID 0bda:8178 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8192CU 802.11n WLAN Adapter
150Mb/s
My wireless router, the ASUS RT-N66U, is capable of supporting the speed so I will have to do some research as to why it is either not reaching or showing higher speeds.
