I got this so I could browse the web wirelessly with my laptop, and so far it has worked great. You can really notice the 22Mbps speeds when you have a 22Mbps adapter card. The pictures on the internet make them look sort of big, but they are actually pretty small. Same size as a DI-604 (router) if you have one you know how small. It is smaller than the 614+ if you've seen that one. very easy to use and I recommend it.

I haven't tried the other modes, but I can verify that the point-to-point bridging works like a charm.
And yes we did notice a speed difference when upgrading the firmware to the latest 4x speeds.

The setup was very easy. I pretty much just followed the quick install guides that came with the products and I was up and running in minutes. They also come with setup wizards that basically guide you through the product setup.

The bottom line is that it is fast, easy to use/setup and I am pleased with my purchase decision.

The Bad: Skimpy documentation, very sensitive to placement under some circumstances, confusing to choose right setup options

I am using this access point on a Mac network. I got it because of the 22mbps throughput available with other similar D-Link products which I also purchased. It is in the challenging position of pushing a broadband cable internet connection to a house across the street (please don't mention this to AT&T!).

The box is small, setup is pretty easy via direct connection and Internet Explorer, the interface screen is HTML-based. We chose wireless client, and set it near a window which is almost direct line of sight about 200 ft. from my office. Once we figured out what to do, we got up to 3800Mbps throughput, which was tons better than the dialup.

Granted, I've been running a wired network in my home for a few years and most of the concepts were not new to me. However, I believe that the installation manual is good enough to get even a networking newbie on the wireless net in no time. The trick is to fully read all of the directions before doing ANYTHING and then read them again as you start the setup process. The one area where the instructions were somewhat lacking was in the advanced setup area such as the MAC address filtering and the encrytion key. I think a newbie might have a little bit of trouble getting these setup. I reccommend the excellent articles and tutorials on 80211-planet.com to help you understand the terminology and concepts before you start changing settings.

I used the DWL-650+ wireless network adapter from D-Link in my laptop and after inputting the encryption key it worked immediately.

I've never had any problems with any networking hardware from D-Link. The quality of their products continue to impress me, especially given their relatively low price. I've also used Netgear, 3Com and Intel and had minor to major problems with all three.

With all those options you will be covered when it comes to the future, because, as an example, if you ever upgrade your Access Point to a newer product you can still use this to either repeat that signal for a further range, or connet this to an Ethernet port and make this a wireless client.

As for the security features, this has everything necessary to make it so no outsiders connect to your WLAN. Disabling broadcasting of the SSID, MAC address filtering, up to 256-bit WEP, and more.

I'd recommend this in conjuction with the DI-604 because they are they are the same size and stackable. This is the setup I have and everything works great. I can now be mobile with my laptop and not worry about security, slow speeds, or the future outdating my equipment too quickly.

The repeater function looks like it only repeats other D-Link products. It also brings the speeds down to 11Mbps when you are connected to the network via the repeater. If you can get a signal with the main AP, then you are able to maintain your 22Mbps speeds.

Everything else about this AP has worked great for me as well and I'd highly recommend it.

Twenty-four hours after setup, the cardbus adapter crashed and would not power up. The wireless connection established between the access point and my Sony Clie WLAN card was VERY slow. I plan to set my nework up again with different equipment in hopes of having better results.

In all fairness, the D-Link access point was good (in and of itself) for normal wireless networking.

Some people have complained that you need to change the TCP/IP settings of a computer especially to enable access to the settings of the access point. I found it much easier to change the LAN IP address of the router to 192.168.0.1 (from the Linksys default of 192.168.1.1). That way the fixed IP address of the Dlink Access Point is compatible with DHCP addresses served up by the Linksys router.

I did this before the Dlink Access Point arrived in the mail and was thus able simply plug in the DWL900AP+ and have it work right away without setting anything up.

Later on I wanted to enable WEP encryption, so that took a few more minutes. But overall, with a little planning this was a very smooth install.

For some reason these boxes are hard to find in the distribution channel as of 9/26/2002. I don't know why this would be since they seem to be good products.

Range seems as good as I need for a 3000 sq ft house and I always get an "excellent" signal strength indication from the client task bar icon.

The only reason for dropping one star from the review was that I had to upgrade the firmware from version 1.0 to 2.1 due to reliability problems loading particular web pages. Hopefully this will improve as older units clear out of the distribution channel.

--crazzell

I bought two of these for the bridging feature. I am linking two small LANs in different houses about 300 yards apart. It works quite well! I do get some lost packets over the bridge probably because it can't quite keep up with the full speed of the Ethernet or maybe I'm getting occasional interference from somewhere.

However, unlike almost all other wireless clients (which this claims to be in "client" mode) there is no way to measure signal strength or even get any feedback on what speed you are getting, it either works or it doesn't. Of course you wouldn't need this feature at all in an access point, but as a bridge, or as a client (the other modes it supports) It would be fairly useful.

It also does not have any network discovery features (as a client), indeed you must provide the MAC address of the inteded Access point to use this as a client, I guess this fits the design as the product is made to be fixed, but the whole idea of wireless is flexibility, which this design isn't. It never claimed to have these discovery or signal strength features, but these are almost standard for other devices that claim to be clients.

I think they designed a great access point, and then threw on the client feature as an afterthougt.

As an access point it performs very well... up to twice as fast as most other wireless gear. The set-up really isn't as hard as the other reviews state. If you have windows 2000 or XP you don't need to reboot after setting your computer to to be on the same subnet to configure the device, which is pretty trivial and clearly explained... at least for someone who would be trying to do *any* sort of networking.

I hope this is helpful to anyone who is having trouble or has any worries about buying something of this nature. As a general rule I'd say just read the manual and you should be fine. Make it work with default settings, then mess around with everything else.

As far as performance goes I get a solid link quality in every room in my house (2 stories). I like the security features, because I don't want my neighbors hording in on my Internet connection.

Recommended to all those who think they can and even those who don't.

I get an average of 5Mbps speeds when transferring files, which obviously doesn't affect my Internet browsing at all.

I am very pleased with the performance, security features, and price. I'd recommend this to everyone who is looking for a fast, secure, and reliable access point.

I am not sure of the maximum range but I can tell you it works fine in my 2 story home with the AP downstairs and the PC with wireless NIC upstairs. I didn't notice much speed difference when browsing the internet. All my pages and downloads seem to be about the same speed as my wired computer with DSL access.

I'd recommend this to anyone who wants to go wireless with faster than 11mbps or doesn't want to put holes in their home to install some cabling to share your DSL line.