Hasta La Gadget!

Is your wireless adapter pumping out signals using a letter designation lower than N? If so, think of all that delicious speed you’re missing. Buffalo is here to give you a taste with three new Wireless-N devices, priced such that they’ll fit into most budgets. First up is a fairly standard router, the WCR-GN, sporting 802.11n WiFi and four Ethernet ports in a cool white design for a mere $40. Then there’s the WLAE-AG300N, a dual-port access point designed for making a pair of wired game consoles or the like wireless. That is a little more pricey, at $80, but the final product, the smallest of the bunch, brings us back down to $40. It’s the WLI-UC-GNM, a USB 2.0 802.11n adapter that is barely bigger than the port it fits in, poking out just far enough for you to pull the thing back out again. All three are pictured in the gallery below, and all three should be shipping soon.

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That little gadget up there isn’t a cellphone, although it certainly shares some design points with the old G1 Googlephone. It is actually a MiFi-like cellular hotspot, a little battery-powered box which shares a 3G data connection over Wi-Fi.

Like the MiFi, the Huawei E583C will support up to five devices over Wi-Fi, plus one more over USB, and it has a microSD-card slot for storing and streaming data. The E583C is functionally very similar to Huawei’s UK-only MiFi E585, with an OLED display to show you the router’s status: which network you’re on, the router’s signal strength and battery level. Lest you think that this is a mere gimmick, I’d point out that one of the biggest annoyances with the original MiFi is the lack of visual feedback, especially on battery status.

The price, when it launches in Hong Kong this month, will be HK$1,380, or $178. And before you go, here’s a fun snippet from the press release: “gadget lovers can now experience the excitement of on-the-go wireless internet.” Excitement!

Huawei Debut Next-Generation Personal Mobile Wi-Fi Device [Huawei via iTech News]

See Also:

• New MiFi with OLED Display
• Mifi-hunter
• Verizon Mifi: Personal Wi-Fi Coming this Month
• MiFi to Get App Store
• MiFi Plus iPod Touch (Almost) Equals iPhone

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Vizio, known mostly for its inexpensive, high-volume HDTVs, has entered the router business.

No, these aren’t the standard data routers (wirelessly) tied to your laptop or other device, but video-optimized wireless 802.11n routers,a dual-band connection which uses both the 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz band to tie your TV to the Internet. Vizio also announced a complementary dual-band Blu-ray player, which also connects to the Internet.

The XWR100 Dual-Band HD Wireless Internet Router prioritizes HD video
and audio to VIA HDTVs and Blu-ray players. Within it are four Ethernet jacks and a USB port for connecting a hard drive. Compatible
with both Mac and PC systems, the XWR100 will be available in Q3 at an MSRP
of $99.99.

Vizio also announced three wirelessly connected Blu-ray players: the VBR210, VBR220 and VBR231. Vizio’s pricing strategy is a bit difficult to understand; you’ll have to wait until July to buy the most expensive model, the VBR231, which will cost $199.99. But that’s just $10 more than the VBR210 and VBR220, whose chief difference is that they operate on the single 2.4-GHz band shared with other 802.11b/g devices, while the VBR231 uses both the 2.4- and the relatively unobstructed 5-GHz band. All three deliver up to 7.1 channels of digital audio output
over HDMI, with support for Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, and DTS
HD audio formats.

The Apple iPad enjoyed a very successful launch over the weekend, with over 300,000 of the sleek new tablets sold. However, many of these new iPad owners have been complaining about poor Wi-Fi performance. Apple’s forums have been flooded with users complaining about weak Wi-Fi.

Apple confirmed the Wi-Fi issue in a recent Knowledge Base article and offers a few remedies for the problem. Some solutions are as simple as changing the location of the router or locking your router to one 802.11 standard. Get more on the issue and how to fix the iPad’s Wi-Fi problem at PCMag.com.

When Cisco bought Flip video, the maker of the super-simple USB camcorder, we were intrigued. What on Earth could a commercial router company want with a consumer camera company? Today Cisco has announced the first product of the partnership. It’s a wireless router, and there is no camera.

The router, or rather range of routers, comes under the name Valet and confusingly there are also identical versions from Linksys, another Cisco company, which lack the mysterious Valet spec.

Valet routers come with a USB stick which, when inserted into your computer will automatically configure the network settings for you. This is great news, especially for non-techy users, and it works on both OS X and Windows. According to Cisco, it takes around “20 to 30 complicated steps to set up a single computer”, and Valet cuts it down to just three.

This seems a little exaggerated. Assuming that your router comes pre-configured from your ISP, as is usually the case in Europe, you have – on a Mac – just two steps: click the network name in the drop-down Airport menu and then copy in the password from the back of the router. Even Windows, which requires a little more work, doesn’t run to anything like 20 steps.

The Valet routers cost a rather steep $100 to $150, and you can pick up a Wi-Fi USB dongle to connect older machines to the network for an outlandish $80. All of the range works on 802.11n, and all come with software that will let you control access for various devices, allowing you to stop the kids surfing porn on their iPod Touches, for example.

And the Flip connection? A mystery. The press release mailed to me uses the “F” word seven times, but even the explanation explains nothing:

With complementary backgrounds and expertise, our Cisco and Flip teams have combined forces to change the rules for home wireless with a product line that empowers consumers to easily set up, enjoy and manage all of their wireless devices anywhere in their homes.

Perhaps it’s the easy-plug and go USB tech? Or maybe something to do with both “Flip” and “Valet” having an “l” in their names? Or nothing at all, other than a simple trick to get tech bloggers to write about an otherwise ho-hum router? If so then well played, Cisco. You got me.

Valet Family [Cisco. Thanks, Jamie!]