Hawking HWREN1 Hi-Gain Wireless-300N Range Extender

Technical review of 300-N Range Extender HWREN1

Pros: best range & technical support of any unit found.
Cons: none found

Model Number: 300 N Range Extender HWREN1

This is the most powerful and easy to install range extender with excellent technical support I have found!

The box contains range extender, 2 antennas, A.C. power adapter, Ethernet cable, setup CD, quick install guide, and mounting screws.

Installation is very easy - plug the A.C. power adapter into the range extender and plug it into an A.C. outlet, plug one end of the supplied Ethernet cable into the range extender and the other end into your router, put the CD in your CD player and run the software. The software will ask you for some basic information but is very straight forward. Unplug the Ethernet cable and move the range extender to its new location.

The only problem I ran into was that my security protocols were not detected properly (unknown reason but very common in the industry) - I called technical support, they answered very quickly, they were very knowledgeable in diagnosing and resolving the problem quickly. The instructions they gave were very easy even for someone who has no computer knowledge.

The range of the extender is excellent it went from 2 bars to 5.

Note 1: Range extender installed using a desktop with XP and a Linksys router. Tested on a desktop with a Dlink USB WI-FI adapter with XP and on a laptop using VISTA.

Note 2: The unit is very light weight I do not consider this a negative as it is the quality not the weight that counts.

Purchased at Costco for $69.99

Most recent user reviews

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"Best gear I've found for extending wireless networks"

5 stars | on March 3, 2012 by Bob_Meyer

Pros

Reasonable price. Easy setup. Pretty much bulletproof: automatically resumes after power outage. Removable antennas so you can replace the stock antennas with aftermarket antennas for stronger signal and Hawking has quite a selection of antennas.

Cons

None that I know of.

Summary

Best gear I've found for extending wireless networks.

"Best Purchase I've Made In A Long Time"

5 stars | on July 16, 2011 by sdonnald

Pros

Incredibly easy installation and I know nothing about computers. Simply plug in and follow the small guide that comes with it, took me no longer than 2 minutes. The range instantly was extended to several hundred feet exactly in the direction I needed i

Cons

None at all that I know

Summary

I don't know why other reviewers had found this product bad, I think they either have something against the company itself. I looked around and found some great reviews on the product at http://www.wirelessrangeextenderreviews.com which is all up to date not like some of these reviews that are over a year old. The drivers had no issue at all, maybe for that one person because Win7 had a LOT of problems with drivers when it was first sold. Not anymore though!

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