February 20, 2010
Written by: Kenneth Kwok
It has been a while since I posted up my last review. To say I have been off track in terms of scheduling my reviews would be an understatement. However, I do plan to get back on track starting today. It's been a long two months since the New Year and there are still a lot of good things coming ahead for Netbook Updates. Anyways, back on the topic of the current review. We have a pretty interesting product in our hands and it comes from a company known as hField, which I must admit I have not heard of before. However, it is nevertheless nice to know that there are still companies out there competing in this market (for our attention). You'll be happy to hear that the product we have today has received plenty or praise from users and reviewers alike. The product we got with us for testing is the hField Wi-Fire, a multi-directional USB Wi-Fi adapter. It boasts long ranges and comes with its own custom software to boot. It seems hfield even has some field tests to offer as proof, au contraire to many others. We will hold them to these results and those of various other testers and see just how well it stacks up in this category. Does it take the crown in terms of performance and portability? Read on to find out! Without further adieu let's head into this review today. (or i might say, "i present you - official name blabla, but that sounds cheezy).
hField sent in our test unit of the hField Wi-Fire in a small white corrugated cardboard box from their office in Pennsylvania. It was shipped using FedEx and they delivered the safely and soundly. There was very little damage aside from some minor nicks on the box and the inside was secured nicely using some foam to keep the hField Wi-Fire from moving around inside of the white cardboard box. FedEx provided excellent shipping unlike some couriers which like to play soccer with your package in the rain. *hint* *hint*
hField's Wi-Fire came in retail packaging which is quite plain and not exactly the best looking of retail packaging but it does get the job done. I have seen one of these on display at a local retailer and it is not really noticeable but there is enough information on it to get the point across. The package has the standard easy to open flaps from the front that opens the top of the box and reveals the contents of the box. The box is functional and should provide storage for the device when not in use quite well.
The front of the box is dominated by the giant text of Wi-Fire on the left side of the box. It is printed in a while to gray gradient and has an orange backdrop as well. Not only does it seem a little generic but it is then contrasted by the black of the right side of the box. The right side is more interesting and sports a picture of the Wi-Fire as well as some important specifications and features to the Wi-Fire. Especially the bold claim of "Range up to 1,000 feet."
The backside of the box sports more explanation of what the hField Wi-Fire is used for and how it can have a range of three times the internal wireless adapter. Also shown is a before and after list of networks and strengths of signals as a demonstration of the power of the Wi-Fire. It also lists some common uses for the Wi-Fire including "Business travelers, and RV and yacht owners". Finally there are praises taken from various reviews to demonstrate how well the Wi-Fire is liked by others in the field of technology.
So, let us take a look of the specifications of this device before moving further, as obtained from the Wi-Fire website:
-Average Maximum Power (EIRP): 27+ dBm
-Minimum Receive Power: -96 dBm
-Wireless Protoco: IEEE 802.11 b/g protocols
-Frequency Range: 2.421 Ghz–2.4835 Ghz
-Security: WEP, WPA, WPAPSK, WPA2, WPA2PSK
-Media Access Control: CSMA/CA with ACK
-Certification: FCC, IC, CE (CE only when so labeled)
-Channels:
*North America: 11 channels
*Rest of World: 13 channels
-Supported OS:
*Windows XP, Vista, and 7
*Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), 10.5 (Leopard), and 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
*Linux (with kernel 2.6.24 and forward)
Weight: 2.8 ounces (80g)
Dimensions: 4 x 0.55 (average) x 2.25 inches (102 x 14 (average) x 57 mm)
Power & Connection: 5V DC via USB 2.0
Packaging inside was done well and kept things from sliding out of place and preserved its mint condition. There is good usage of more cardboard on the inside to take up some space near the bottom of the box, while the Wi-Fire was located above that with some foam on the bottom to keep it from damage. This also makes it easier to repackage and bring the box with you if needed.
Found in the box are as follows: Mini USB 2.0 to USB 2.0 cable, hField Wi-Fire, Drivers CD and an Installation guide. Everything is placed neatly in the box and was well protected. However, I would have liked to see some sort of bag or some form of protection on the Wi-Fire to keep dust from getting on it or water easily seeping through the box. Other than that, it is a pretty standard affair.
Aesthetically, the Wi-Fire is not especially pleasing but it has a more industrial or commercial feel to it. It feels quite "professional" and fits in with more business oriented notebooks or netbooks such as our test system that we will be using later on. This vibe makes it great for uses in the business sector and the personal field alike. As this conservative design of grey is actually not bad. It is made completely of plastic but it doesn't feel flimsy and has a more functional design as this is a directional USB Wifi adapter.
Two clips are located on the bottom of the Wi-Fire and are rotated to clip onto the back of the laptop or netbook in our case. This could also work on a Thinner LCD monitor or a flat surface. The Mini USB port for connection to a computer can be found on the bottom of the side with the hField logo engraved on it. In terms of size the Wi-Fire is quite large and can be seen in our first picture in the testing section. However, the design is directional and also functional which should provide much greater range than the standard Wifi adapter in our netbooks and nettops.
Testing
The hField Wi-Fire had no indication of it being online except for the software and Windows popping up a notification when it is connected which is just fine and dandy. The Wi-Fire also uses custom software from hField which is included in the drivers CD and more updates for it are available online especially recently for Apple computers. The software is functional as per the design, giving accurate data and a healthy dose of hField Wi-FIre branding throughout. It is quite basic but basic in a sense of simplicity not lack of features. Unfortunately, this product only comes in Wireless G and does not support Wireless N. Although most infrastructures still use G, it would be nice to have the option of N as well.
The specifications for our test system were as follows:
Processor: Intel Atom N270 @ 1.60 GHz
Chipset: Intel 945GSE
Ram: 2 GB
GPU: Nvidia 9300M GS 256MB
Hard Drive: 250GB
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium w/ SP1
Wireless Chipset: Atheros AR928X
Our tests for the hField Wi-Fire was simple and should be used to provide a reference of results only. Unlike some other sites, we will not pull some BS on consumers without doing some serious testing like test studies or heavy tests. There are a lot of factors to a wireless signal and it is near impossible for anyone to regulate all of these factors. These factors include interference, exact distances, constant signal strength, temperature and many others. Since we cannot keep all of these things constant, we will try to keep our signals and variable factors as consistent as possible and not add more factors in our attempt to test this product. We compared this against the standard Wifi chip inside our test system and compared the signal strengths and the amount of networks we could find in our local neighborhood. This is our first test of a Wifi module, and as such we plan to set a standard here with our first review, one of the many reasons for the delay to this review. We did not test the speeds of the connection because wireless is very inconsistent and even averaging three to five results would not give an adequate result to prove anything due to the various elements that could lead to error.
As we stated before, the hField Wi-Fire uses their own custom software. It is actually very simple to use and displays the Name, Signal Quality, Secure and Network type for each of the found Wifi signals. The Signal Quality is more accurate than Window's and provides a good idea of how strong the signal is. Of course the higher it is, the better the speeds and connection will be. As seen in the picture above, there are several wireless networks nearby, eleven of them to be exact. We see that some signals are very strong and some are quite a bit weaker. Since the hField Wi-Fire is directional as we mentioned before, the signals are stronger when the Wi-Fire is set to point at the direction of the Wifi signals. We rotated the Wi-Fire around and found better signal quality for some of the signals thanks to the directional aspect of the Wi-Fire. Interestingly some of these Wifi signals are located at least 10 houses away and that is quite a distance. With this, I do believe in the listed range of up to 1000 feet. We even did a small test from our car outside of the house and we were still able to get an impressive connection to our wireless connection located inside our house.
Finally, compared to our standard Wifi module built into the test system, we are able to see the biggest difference here. Using the stock module, only four signals can be detected and some of them have very weak signals. This shows just how much better of a connection that the hField Wi-Fire can put up in comparison to our stock module. Using Window's stock menu to connect to wireless networks, it is clear that the signals are a fair bit weaker than that of the hField Wi-Fire. In addition there are only four signals compared to the eleven signals we found while using our hField Wi-Fire. Some may say that this proves nothing, but in reality it proves quite a bit. Just having a signal detected compared to not having it detected goes a long way. In our test where we accessed our wireless from our car, it was impossible to get a signal without the Wi-Fire. One of the main purposes for the Wi-Fire is to upgrade the receiver vs. the transmitter. This works well for those of us trying to leach signals or to pick up weaker signals in spotty areas.
After taking a look at all the light testing we had done it is hard to discredit anything about the Wi-Fire, it is an overall great product even though it is built using plastic but that is purely aesthetic. Its design is very solid and so is the build quality of the device. The size is a bit big, but the performance on this thing is quite amazing and through our minor tests, it is easy to see that it easily outperforms any stock wireless module found in any netbook in today's market. The directional design of the Wi-Fire allows a user to get a better signal by pointing it to the general area and makes finding connections easier. Drivers for the Wi-Fire are also solid, it is simple but there is functionality in its simplicity unlike some software that is generic and not meant exactly for the intended product. To top all of this off they also offer this USB Wifi module for only $59.99 at the publishing date. To say this product met our expectations would be an understatement; the Wi-Fire is definitely one of the best buys on the market in terms of USB Wifi modules. Especially for business users that demand better speeds or connections in their field of work. The only problem I had was that it lacked wireless N support, which has become steadily more popular over the last few months.
Shouts out to Stephen from hField for providing us the sample unit
Awards: Optimum Award
Score: 87%
90%: It is near perfect, the positives far outweigh the negatives.
80%: Still a great product with minor setbacks that should not affect the reader.
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