Header banner
Revain logoHome Page
Andrew Choukline photo
France
1 Level
709 Review
38 Karma

Review on πŸ”Œ TP-Link TL-WN823N N300 Mini USB Wireless WiFi Network Adapter - Perfect for PC and Raspberry Pi, Black by Andrew Choukline

Revainrating 4 out of 5

To be honest I'm surprised it worked! TL; DR below if you don't want to read the details

I bought this wireless adapter for OS X 10.10.5 Yosemite because my wireless card stopped working. Much of the review is based on my experience with my Mac. Upon opening the package, I noticed that the adapter was fairly small (smaller than the average flash drive), came with an installation CD, and said on the box that it was compatible with Windows and no other operating systems on the list. The CD only contains the installation for Windows XP - 8.1, but will work on Windows 10. The installation files for Mac OS X are NOT on the CD. You need to download the driver from TP-Links website which says it works from 10.7 to 10.11. So yes, it works with El Capitan, but I haven't tested it. You can grab the files from another computer and transfer them via flash drive, or use an ethernet cable on a Hackintosh, Mac Book, whatever you have and upload from there. Website [.] Installation was fairly easy using a .pkg installer. Installed, connected WiFi adapter, rebooted. As soon as it restarted, the program started, I connected to my home network with their installed utility, and boom, I'm connected. The utility seems to run when the Mac boots, so I don't have to keep it on all the time. So far I've had no crashes, no long lags, no real issues with the adapter. I could play just fine, but of course it's wireless; Wireless has occasional bursts of latency, especially in a condominium complex where interference is very likely that I can't control. I'm having speeds comparable to the mini PCI-e wireless adapter that originally came with the Mac. I suspect that the people who had bad reviews about it were due to human factors, whether it's intense interference, long distances, or a bad network. Setup only after the router has been installed by a technician, which is quite possible. Even if the adapter gets a little warm, this is normal. Windows users similarly install it with the .exe file if the CD doesn't work. TL; DR, I'm very happy with it and would recommend Hackintosh users (or regular Mac users) to buy this if they need a wireless connection and don't want to mess with changing the DSDT or contacting Apple customer support. Also works great on Windows.

Pros
  • New
Cons
  • Slightly torn