The launch of the 450Mbps segment of the 802.11n specification was sort of backwards. We saw some of the first routers last year in the September – October time frame. Then at CES we got our first glimpse of one of the new 450Mbps wireless adapters. This was the TRENDNet TEW-687GA that we just finished testing. But we are not going to stop there as we have another 450Mbps adapter from TRENDNet in the lab. This one is more PC specific and connects over USB 2.0. You lose the universal appeal that the 687GA had but gain more on portability. So let’s introduce the TRENDNet TEW-684UB 450Mbps Dual Band USB wireless adapter.
The TEW-684UB -The TEW-684UB is a miniature of the TEW-687GA. It is roughly 1/4th the size of the original while maintaining the same shape. The front has the same LEDs with the exception of the LAN connectivity one. The top has a button (although this is not reset but WPS). The back has a single Micro USB port for connection to your PC. Pretty simple huh?
Well we could not resist and pulled the cover off of this one too. Under the stoic black cover we found a fairly simple PCB with a covered chipset. Unfortunately pulling that cover off had too great a potential for damaging the PCB so we could not discover what was under the hood. We did find something interesting though. If you look just above the EMI (ElectroMagnetic Interference) shield we see three points. These combine to make up the MIMO antenna. The cool thing is that you can attach the same thin wire antenna cables used in laptops to extend the reception range on this. We happen to have a couple from our Minix system and may see what we can get if we connect them to this in the future. For now we will move on to seeing if the performance of the TEW-684UB is also a miniature of the 687GA.
