Microsoft’s new adaptor takes advantage of the 802.11n standard, which is said to offer a longer range and faster transfer rates, this of course means that gamers should experience less lag when playing online and also better quality when streaming movies in the Zune Marketplace.

 

Setting up the N Adaptor is a simple process, although it could have been less confusing. Being a man I never usually follow the instructions, and in this case I would have been better to follow this usual “plug it in and see” route, however for some reason I did follow the instructions and things therefore took a bit longer than necessary. The wireless adaptor comes with a disc, however this has been rendered useless by the last update, therefore when entering the disc it will not work, even though the instructions tell you to do so. Setting up the adaptor therefore is a simple case of plugging it in and turning on your machine, which results in it working straight away.

 

So how does it perform? Well given that we were running some tournaments I decided to host a few matches and test the experience both I and other players where having in the game and given my previous adaptor seems to cause loads of lag, I’m pleased to reveal that all of the matches when past without too many people complaining of slowdown, therefore the adaptor seems to pass this test with flying colours.

 

The next test was streaming a movie, to test the adaptor I watched Diminished Capacity in HD using the Zune Marketplace, I have to say that the movie played perfectly, buffering in next to no time and running for the entire length without any issues whatsoever. I am not confident my previous adaptor would manage such a feat, therefore I was very impressed at this point.

 

The big question has to be, is this adaptor worth the cash and I have to say that in my experience it very much is. I personally do not have a very fast broadband speed due to my homes distance from the exchange, therefore this adapter for me at least seemed to make a significant difference to the performance of my online gaming and my consoles ability to stream movies. Whether this could be said for people who already have a faster connection I cannot say, but I for one am very impressed with the N Router and as a bonus it is black just like my Elite console.