Netgear AC1200 A6210-100PES USB High Gain Dual Band Wi-Fi Adapter (Black)

★★★★☆ Its really huge as compared to other WiFi USB adapters out there. It works at the advertised speeds of 1900 mbps (1300 mbps 5ghz band + 600 mbps 2.4 ghz band) . The included software is just poorly optimized and causes constant disconnection.[P.S: To get rid of the constant disconnection, install only the standalone driver(driver_SA). And dont use the software that comes in the cd; go to the netgear official site and download the latest drivers. After installation, go to services.msc and disable RunSwUSB and then restart and the constant disconnections will be gone. Its actually caused by the this service trying to switch from usb 2 to usb 3 constantly which causes the disconnection. But if you are on windows 7, then just leave it enabled as it does not cause issues in windows 7 and is essential if you are running windows 7. But in windows 10, it causes issues and needs to be disabled]

★★★★★ I use a 5GHz/2.5GHz dual band Wifi network at home with a good quality Access Point from Ubiquity. This dongle works very well with full strength connectivity to my router at 864 Mbps which is the best you can get for this standard. The wifi where I live is very noisy with frequent interference due to a lot of neighboring networks. This dongle is rock solid in its connectivity to the AP with very good RSSI.A 5GHz AC standard dongle is about 4 times expensive than the comparable b/g/n standard dongles, but if you are on a fast broadband (mine gives 110mbps download speeds) then using a slow wifi dongle will kill your real internet speeds. In speeds test for the same network the maximum download speed on b/g/n dongle is around 30Mbps which 3 times slower to the 110Mbps speed I get using this AC dongle. So skimping money on dongle will waste the money I am spending on my broadband. Though this is more expensive than the TPlink T4U V2 Archer dongle which is cheaper by around Rs 300, but you get what you pay for. The Archer dongle I received earlier failed to connect on the 5 GHz band so I returned it. Its build quality was worse compared to this dongle.

★★★★★ Stable connection and no disconnection from router during heavy download and upload. I uploaded around 87 GB of data from my pc to my NAS through this device without any disconnection problem. My asus router AC-5300 shows 950 mbps as transmit link and 560-670 mbps as receive link when netgear A7000 connects to my router. I have not seen the link speed ever touches near to 1300 mbps though my router is capable to support 2166 mbps over 5GHZ radio. But the advertized speed never gets achieved by any device which is available in the market. But overall this device is much better in terms of price and performance compared to other devices present in the market. Supplied base stand/holder has very strong magnet so it is easy to stick to anywhere on PC Cabinet. If someone planning to use it without base stand holder then keep it in mind that this device is wider and will occupy nearby usb ports.

★★☆☆☆ Works with Linux... Kernel 4.18.5 as of Sept 2018Install drivers manually using either dkms or compile using make.... Then insmod the driver. Switch off SECURE BOOT in BIOS as it creates problems.NOVEMBER 2019 UPDATE: I have revised it to a 2 star rating. One for Amazon and one for Netgear. Read Further.With the 5.3 series kernel there hasn't been any updated driver on github. You will be forced to use 5.2 series the last being 5.2.18 with this device. I reckon it will work nicely with 4.19 on the new Debian but most people aren't gonna use that.Realtek does NOT officially provide any apt support for the RTL series devices for LINUX. The A7000 uses the RTL8814AU chipset which is excellent but has pathetic support with the new kernel. DO NOT get this device or any of the RTL series because it will not work with fedora 31 or other newer distros. So much for performance, so little for being useless. Even the ALFA 1900 which uses the same chipset is nothing more than a fancy brick to look at.I also have the TPLINK T2U nano which has the RTL8812AU and that too is useless at the moment.

★★★☆☆ Had to take replacement from Amazon as per recommendation by Netgear support however was of no use.Build quality is good however this adapter has major issues or design flaws. Adapter is definitely high gain and can provide good speeds even at long distance on 5Ghz band, However on Windows 10 it keeps on connecting / disconnecting while switching to USB 2.0 / 3.0 which is very disturbing at the time of bank transaction or any other important communication.Tried downloading the recommended drivers from Netgear website and installing / uninstalling multiple times which didn't helped as ultimately I have to make changed in driver's properties to resolve this issue(Max USB Speed.) I am using this adapter on USB 2.0 so that it will not switch to USB 3.0 provide better speeds.As per my connection speed I can get optimum speeds on USB 2.0 hence this solves the purpose for me. However if you have more than 100 mbps connection then you may face issues with this adapter on Windows 10. Netgear support people have got no clue about this issue as this adapter is bought by very limited people in India and all they will suggest is to check the USB port and to install updated drivers or replace the adapter which will not resolve the issue.There are multiple forums where you can find fixes to resolve the issue however nothing works other than changing driver settings in advanced to stop switching the adapter between USB 2.0/ 3.0.

★★★★★ Initially it got frequently disconnected. Later removed drivers which was installed from the CD suppled with product and installed standalone driver from Netgear site. Subsequently diactiavted "RunSwUsb" process through task manager in windows 10. After doing this, connection never got dropped and getting very high speed as good as wired connection.