TP-Link AC600 USB Wi-Fi Dongle, Dual Band 5 GHz Wireless
TP-Link AC600 USB Wi-Fi Dongle, Dual Band 5 GHz Wireless Adapter for PC, Desktop and Laptop, Supports Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/XP, Mac OS 10.9-10.13 (Archer T2U Nano)
From the brand
AV1000 Gigabit Powerline Kit
- HomePlug AV2 Standard – high-speed data transfer rates of up to 1000 Mbps
- Gigabit port
- Up to 300 Meters
| Weight: | 8.97 g |
| Dimensions: | 1.85 x 1.5 x 0.71 cm; 8.99 Grams |
| Brand: | TP-Link |
| Model: | Archer T2U Nano |
| Colour: | Black |
| Batteries Included: | No |
| Manufacture: | TP-Link |
| Dimensions: | 1.85 x 1.5 x 0.71 cm; 8.99 Grams |
The TP-Link AC600 Wi-Fi Dongle is really good! It’s easy to use and gives you a strong internet connection. The antenna helps it work better, and it’s small, so you can take it anywhere. If you need Wi-Fi, this is a great choice!
Needed a new dongle for a PC and this dual band one works a treat, very easy to install, ie just plug it in and follow the installation instructions on screen, the driver installs from the supplied CD without issue.
Dongle itself is very low profile and sits just proud of the computers case, being so low it means the chances of knocking it and damaging it are very much reduced.
Good bit of kit for a good price.
I have a relatively new, decent spec Asus laptop, but for some reason the wifi is never very good. After trying all kinds of tech support options (resetting again and again and again mainly) the problem just comes back. The next step would have been to send the laptop off for them to have a look at (and then find out the cost to fix it as this has dragged on for just over a year), so I decided to give this dongle a go instead, and it’s fixed the problem instantly. It’s not the most compact dongle, because of the antenna, but I suppose that’s part of how it works so well. Ideally I wouldn’t have it sticking out the side of my laptop all of the time, but it’s worth it to know that my wifi is better than ever. It also uses my only USB port, but works fine via a USB hub too so not a major issue.
I was pleasantly surprised how easy this was to use. I literally plugged it in and it worked for me without any issues. Not sure if that’s normal. Works perfectly.
Drivers installed from CD (link supplied for download too) was straight forward.
Paired to wifi with no problem and easy to adjust its position to suit.
Good signal and transfer speeds.
Tried and tested maker gives confidence it will work straight out of the box.
Worthwhile for me rather than speculating on cheaper but never heard of options available.
Can recommend this kit.
Since recent Windows updates, my laptop’s Wi-Fi and Bluetooth drivers annoyingly disappeared one by one. With limited USB ports, I needed a 2-in-1 dongle offering both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in a single, compact unit.
As mentioned in other reviews, installing the Bluetooth driver was the only hurdle. The Wi-Fi driver installed automatically upon plugging in the dongle. However, for Bluetooth, you need to manually run ‘autorun.exe’ from the included mini disc.
Unfortunately, my laptop, like most these days, lacks a DVD drive. I had to borrow my husband’s desktop computer to access the disc’s content and transfer it to my laptop for driver installation. Thankfully, it worked!
Overall, I’m pleased with the TP-Link dongle. While it might be pricier than some Chinese alternatives on Amazon, it delivers reliable performance. My work-from-home routine primarily involves using MS Office and other applications, so speed isn’t a major concern — stability is key. This dongle fits the bill perfectly.
I highly recommend this product for anyone seeking a dependable 2-in-1 dongle with dual functionality.
Fast and easy to setup, took me less than 2 mins to do. Reliable connection speeds, but every so often it will go off randomly for a minute, but I think that’s the TP-Link resetting. Overall the product is great especially for the price.
I bought this device to enable me connect my recently constructed workstation to WiFi. The system runs on Ubuntu so I had to install the driver using some command line I found online. It worked perfectly and the experience has been great.
EASY REVIEW FOE THIS. I bought a cheap one and it was rubbish!! Think this cost me 15 ish and it works from downstairs to upstairs give me around 30mb internet , enough to stream videos … perfect for me for a desktop pc that I got just to use for videos and putting music to my phone , Don’t bother with any of the others just buy this and save the hassle
great Wi-Fi amp! you just plug into an empty USB socket, for me it was on my desktop PC its plug and play!
My Wi-fi was always dropping out, but it hasn’t done it once since plugging it in!
Great buy very happy!
AC1300 USB Wifi Dongle
Easy to install, I dowloaded driver from TPlink, installed no problems.
I now have 600mbps from PC to router, giving me 100mbps internet speed!!
Previous PCie network card only gave 30mbps to the internet…so a great improvement.
Well, I bought this TP-Link USB on the 31st January 2022, and it’s currently the 1st September 2023, so I’d say it’s done a pretty good job! I was sceptical after my last TP-Link USB broke suddenly, but I would actually recommend you buy this
It’s compatible with all operating systems that I know of. Windows, macOS, Linux, possibly BSD? (I would assume so), you should consider purchasing this, it is grea
After using one to fix an issue on a family Pc, I ended up buying another for a PC I was moving at home. t’s a nice and simple solution, comes with the driver CD and is all up and running in minutes.
Bought as a tempory measure the TP-Link AC600 Nano Wi-Fi Bluetooth 4.2 USB Adapter, Dual Band Wireless does what it says it does, I just plugged it into the pc and didn’t need the installation disc. Small and discrete and it is nice to be able to bluetooth my phone to the PC without using cables.
Purchased to add a new PC to the office short term where wired access wasn’t possible.
This fit the bill and generally worked well. Best of all it was nice and cheap for a known good brand.
Had an issue early on where it failed to connect and Windows reported an error with the adapter but once reinstalled it was faultless.
I was struggling to get better Wi-Fi signal on my laptop as the router was pretty far away. I got this dongle to having a lot of hope in my mind. What a mistake! It was easy to set up, the Wi-Fi speed is definitely several times better and download speed on pc is great. I was so happy that I chose this to buy! Thank you!
Arrived promptly. I’ve been using for 2 weeks and, so far, it works well with a TP-Link booster. Easy to install, but best installed at back of computer as it could be vulnerable to breakage if used at the front.
The installation of the dongle is very easy and straightforward. You just need to plug it into a USB 3.0 port on your computer and install the driver from the included CD or download it from the TP-Link website. The dongle is compatible with Windows 11, 10, 8.1, 8, and 7 operating systems. It also comes with a USB extension cable that allows you to place the dongle in a more optimal position for better reception.
The performance of the dongle is impressive and consistent. I tested it on my laptop which has a built-in Wi-Fi card and compared the results using Speedtest.net. The dongle was able to achieve higher download and upload speeds than the built-in card on both bands. The latency was also lower with the dongle. The signal strength was also better with the dongle, especially on the 5 GHz band, where I could connect to my router from farther away without any dropouts or interruptions.
The dongle also supports MU-MIMO technology, which means it can communicate with multiple devices simultaneously and reduce congestion and latency on your network. It also supports WPA/WPA2 encryption and a WPS button for easy and secure connection.
Some of the pros and cons of the dongle are:
—–Pros:—–
1- Fast and reliable Wi-Fi speeds on both bands
2- High-gain antenna that improves signal strength and range
3- Easy installation and compatibility with Windows OS
4- USB extension cable included
5- MU-MIMO technology supported
6- WPA/WPA2 encryption and WPS button supported
—–Cons:—–
1- The dongle is quite large and bulky, which might block other USB ports or interfere with other devices
2- The driver might need to be updated manually from time to time
3- The dongle might get hot after prolonged use
———————————–
Some of the reasons to buy or avoid the dongle are:
—–Buy:—–
– If you want to upgrade your Wi-Fi connection on your PC or laptop to the latest standard and enjoy faster and more stable speeds
– If you have a weak or unstable Wi-Fi signal in your area and need a high-gain antenna to boost it
– If you have multiple devices on your network and want to reduce congestion and latency with MU-MIMO technology
Avoid:
– If you have limited USB ports or space on your computer and do not want a large and bulky device sticking out
– If you do not want to deal with driver updates or potential compatibility issues with future Windows updates
– If you are concerned about the heat generated by the dongle after long hours of use
——————–
—-Conclusion:—-
The TP-Link Dongle is an excellent device for anybody looking to boost their Wi-Fi connection on a PC or laptop. It offers fast and consistent speeds on both bands, a high-gain antenna that improves signal strength and range, easy setup and compatibility with Windows OS, MU-MIMO technology, WPA/WPA2 encryption, and a WPS button. It does, However, it also has some drawbacks, such as its large size, driver updates, and heat generation. Therefore, you should weigh the pros and cons before buying it.
Great product and works well. WiFi signal isn’t the best and can get interference when walking past the PC using bluetooth/if your phone is near when listening wirelessly. However this is expected and can be fixed by using a USB extender closer to the desktop
When these are working they work really well but sometimes has the tendency to need to be pulled out then reinserted to work again, Also have to looked around on the internet as seems to be a common problem with these but when working a majority of the time are good
It wasn’t as simple as plug and go, but, as someone who knows nothing about Macs, I worked it out. Ignore the CD, it’s very out of date. Instead, I plugged the tiny wee USB in, finally got my wifi to stay on long enough to get to the driver website (link is included on the leaflet), found the driver for OS 10.5, and downloaded it. You may have to override your security settings a couple of times because the driver developer is ‘unknown.’ Once I got past this, it was smooth sailing.
So, here I am, minutes later, online and leaving a 5* review for a piece of kit I should have bought 6 months ago. At least I’ll be more productive now not having to restart multiple times per hour 🙂
It seems to be working fine, but I did have a few set-up issues, the first two of which are related to the adapter:
1. It didn’t work straight away after plugging it in (as other reviewers have reported).
2. I found the driver installation a bit of a faff.
3. I had to manually disconnect my PC’s current wifi card, as it kept connecting via that instead of via this adapter.
4. My PC only supports 2.4GHz and not the faster 5GHz, so I can only get a max connection speed of 200mbs.
But once I’d figured these little glitches out, it seems to be working fine. I am getting very close to its max (200mps) connection speed, which is nice and pretty good for less than a tenner!
I was planning to return this because after the STUCK installation on 90% BS,
I managed to direct windows to the downloaded zip folder, and it said it was installed.
Was getting even worst speeds after of 5-10mbps with the new adaptor.
And after trying several times in different position of the USB extension cord I was just going to return it…
Well MAGICALLY today,
My Link speed went from 86mbps too 325+,
so checked fast.com and I’m now getting over 100mbps…
Now this might be random, so I will keep an eye on it.
If it stays that way, the review will be 4 stars (install getting stuck and never working -1 star),
otherwise I’ll review it as 1 star if I return it.
So, after 1 day of disappointment,
so far so good.
About 4-5x improvement!
No more buffering on 4K content.
This Wifi dongle is extremely tiny and requires no setup at all.
Even though it comes with a driver disk, this is not required for Windows 10.
Just plug and play.
However, due to its size, this means that its internal antenna is also very tiny so it lacks in signal strength.
It has both 2.4Ghz and 5.0Ghz systems with very fast speeds, however that is only releven if you are close enough to your router to get a strong signal.
Tested on my laptop at around 5m from my router through one (stud) wall, a speed check on my 80meg broadband resulted in just 52meg transfer rate compared with 77meg from my laptops built-in Wifi using 2.4Ghz.
Slightly worse results were found on 5.0Ghz.
These tests were carried out on the same laptop using both internal wifi and the TPlink dongle connected at the same time but switching between them.
I’m quite impressed with the size and the fact it has 5.0Ghz but suffers from the lack of a good antenna.
For its price and capabilities it is very good, but don’t expect to get the quoted speeds unless your only a few metres away from your router.
Similar results were found o
Packaging:
The packaging is simple, a sturdy box with a plastic cradle holding the dongle & associated documentation. In my opinion, this should be reduced further because it wasn’t able to fit through the letterbox and the item itself is relatively small, so it seems a bit excessive.
Installation:
Plug & Go, simply push the dongle into your device, in my experience I used a Windows 10 desktop that was able to automatically download the driver despite not being connected to the internet, the dongle then started working without any issues what-so-ever. I can’t comment for Linux/Mac as all the devices I own for these purposes already have Wi-Fi inbuilt.
Reliability/Stability:
I found the connection to be stable, no issues downloading vast quantities of data when connected to my 5GHz Wi-Fi router, I would recommend connecting to 5GHz over 2.4GHz where possible purely based on speed but Speedtest.Net was able to utilise the up-to the full 200Mbps of my fibre connection limit.
Would definitely recommend for anyone looking for a portable/easy/quick dongle that certainly does the job at a reasonable price.
My macbook pro wifi had become temperamental – it would still work close to the router so I initially thought that the problem was with the router but a booster didn’t help.
The dongle has fixed the problem completely.
Installing the dongle is straightforward but you have to download the right software, so if your wifi is not working at all you will need to put it on a USB stick and transfer it.
Support for MacBook Catalina OS is a beta version, but I’ve seen no trouble so far. You can use MacBook Big Sur but so far the way of installing it looks a little security unfriendly so I’m hoping that by the time security updates for Catalina run out (end 2022?) that will be fixed. If not it’s 9 for a year’s extension to the life of my mac which I am more than happy with.
I’ve used a TP-Link WN321G on every new build Windows 7 PC I’ve made; Windows 7 doesn’t include the drivers for their internal Ethernet or Wifi (and not all computers today come with DVD drives), but it does have the WN321G drivers built in, so I have to use that – at a max 54mbp/s – and then use Windows update to get the faster speeds of the more modern devices.
This AC600 Nano promises faster speeds and is more portable than the chewing gum sized WN321G.
However, it doesn’t work out the box on Windows 7, and needs the drivers that come on the DVD to work. I’ve copied them off the DVD onto my Windows 7 install USB, which I then can search for on each machine I use it in.
The speed is good, reception seems stable and it feels more secure than the larger stick.
It does work on Windows 10 without issue, and I’ve been using it as a wireless hot spot without issue.
As stated in the questions; this model doesn’t work on a Raspberry Pi without a bit of work.
Want to know more? Well, this may go on a long journey so bear with me…
I recently upgraded our broadband connection to Virgin Media’s latest Super Hub, but was getting very little improvement on the stability and speed of the connection on my laptop. Virgin were allegedly supplying a 100Mb signal, but my laptop would usually receive only 30-40Mb. My mobile and my tablet (which are both much newer than the laptop) were registering 90-100Mb and if I connected with an ethernet cable the connection would skyrocket.
After a while, the laptop connection (through the built-in network adapter) became much more unstable; it would slow down or disconnect entirely. Searching for options to remedy the wireless connection led me to this item. On its arrival I followed all the installation procedure, which was a bit of a faff – it is NOT just plug-and-play – and connected to my network straight away. A quick trip to Speedtest.net gave me a reading of 108Mb/s – the quickest wireless connection I’d ever had on my laptop.
It has now been in almost constant use for the last 7 days and has not dropped its signal yet.
This is a little gem. The dual band capacity has got me thinking of upgrading my broadband to 200Mb, because now I can actually appreciate it. I use the Plex app on my XBox One to stream video content from my laptop to my TV; with my previous setup buffering and signal loss were significant issues. Now I can happily stream 1080p video with nary a stutter. Very Happy.