Side by Side Comparison of: 7inova vs Panda

Works great on my Raspberry Pi 2. The supplied CD indicates that the drivers are from MediaTek. Note: No need to install supplied drivers. Just pop in and go.

Nice price for an adapter with a really good range.. Tested on Linux, Windows 7, Windows 10, and Raspberry Pi (namely OpenELEC, Berryboot, RetroPie).

I ordered two of these for two of my Raspberry Pi 2's that I just Kodi on in two different rooms. So long as the one rooms door is open I get signal, it gets iffy once the door is closed. The one in the living room is working like a champ and I've been running 9+gig bluray movies through it.

This is a well designed product. I tried it with Windows and Linux operating systems. On Linux it works with no driver installation needed. On Windows the included driver needs to be installed. The signal reception is excellent which is expected with the external antenna.I also used it in access point mode in Linux which worked without issues. I love it when a device just works as advertised without having to jump through hoops. Could you make a dual band device (2.4 and 5GHz) with the same capabilities? That will be an awesome product.

This WiFi adapter kicks butt! When doing a neighborhood scan this adapter picks up twice as many APs with its external 2dB antenna than a no antenna external 3dB WiFi dongle. I get a solid 144 mbs from it. The only down side is the size of the antenna on my Surface Pro. This adapter can be placed in to monitor mode easily and works on Linux. It does get warm as it is working so it consumes some power on a notebook or laptop.

The wireless usb adapter showed up on time in my mailbox this afternoon. I bought a netgear n300 router for almost $40 to use on my UBUNTU tower! Needless to say, I jettisoned it and went to Amazon to buy this device because it supported Ubuntu. When I unpacked it, I plugged it into the tower. I powered it on, and the adapter came to life almost instantly! The white part glows blue. After I logged in, I immediately noticed thet it was already connected and I didn't need to do a thing. It has a decent connection to my DOCSIS 3.0 router. If this thing works on my raspberry PI, I will be ordering another one, and future ones as I convert friends old pc's to Linux!

This is a single (2.4 GHz) band device with two radios, supporting the 300 Mbps claim and accounting for its larger size. You get the faster speeds with "channel bonding", i.e. using two wireless channels at once. This is of dubious value if, like most of us, you live in a place where there are many wi-fi routers competing for channels in the crowded 2.4 GHz spectrum, and aside from that it's not always clear how to get channel bonding working (it doesn't seem to be happening for me and I have no idea what to do about it).

Anyway it's working fine in single channel mode out of the box with Raspbian Jessie on a Raspberry Pi 2. It does not work with my other RPi2 running OSMC, but there's probably a way to fix that.

Finally I noticed the USB connector gets very hot to the touch; am guessing at least the advertised maximum operating temperature of 50C (122F). This makes me wonder if it will fail prematurely, and I'll update here if it does.

UPDATE 2017-02-14: I talked with Panda support about the heat concern and they mailed a replacement out (PAU03 150Mbps version at my request), no charge. Comparing the two, I find the PAU05 gets a better signal, I guess because it's bigger. I will continue to run it and see if it holds up. 5 stars for awesome support!

UPDATE 2017-04-02: Still working well with continuous use under Raspbian.

I had some problems getting this setup at first and reached out to their support who were super responsive and helpful throughout troubleshooting. My problem was that I could connect to my wifi but couldn't get an IP address. If I configured a static IP, it worked. I remembered that I had a static IP configured for my Ethernet card even though at this point I didn't have any network cable plugged in. After clearing the static IP config on my network card, I was able to get a DHCP address off my wireless network and all is working fine since then.

5 stars to their support and for the product itself. Just had to get over that initial problem which is probably specific to my computer.

We recently brought home 2 Lenovo work computers that are 2 years old, both were upgraded to Windows 10 from Windows 8. They both had ethernet only as an internet connection, no onboard wifi. So we were in need of wifi adapters to connect at home without having to string cables everywhere. After researching different wifi adapters online, it appeared that a lot of them had issues with Windows 10. So I thought it would be best to get one at a midrange price and well known brand just in case of problems. So I originally purchased 2 Netgear AC600 mini adapters for forty bucks each, which were also supposedly backwards compatible with N routers. They were installed as instructed with the provided CD. No initial problems. However, after restarting the computer it would not connect to the internet. It actually kept shutting down our whole network with 2 iPads, laptop, and the tv, whoever was on it. I had to keep resetting the router, which did not have issues until adding the adapters. This happened for over a week. I tried all the install, reinstall, driver updating from manufacturer and Windows, disabling certain settings, etc.. All to no avail. I finally decided to return them and search for something else. I checked out a bunch of ones here on Amazon, and decided to go with this Panda Wireless PAU05. I was worried about the same type issues happening again, but for seventeen bucks each was worth a try. It had very good feedbacks and said it was plug and play, so I figured I would give it a shot even though I had not heard of this brand before. I got them on same day shipping, put them in, turned on the computer, and voila! Internet connection. These have been awesome for like 10 days now, without a single issue on both computers. They are pretty quick too. Take a chance and go for it. You might just be surprised as I was. Thank you Panda Wireless!!!

Saved functionality on my new Dell Inspiron 2-in-1 laptop, which apparently has a faulty/finicky wireless adapter. after checking on Dell's site and googling reviews I found this common problem- none of the Dell suggested fixes, resetting my router or "troubleshooting" the wireless seemed to help, it would completely lose my "Favorite" network as well as the 5 or so neighboring networks I always used to "see". all of a sudden NONE of them exist? when I read to try USB wireless adapter and bypass my computer's internal wireless altogether I thought, sounds simple enough for me! I saw so many good reviews on this one by Panda Wireless, it's not too big, but has good range. I sit in an alcove of sorts, surrounded on 3 sides by walls, with the router a good 30+ feet away, through several other walls. this dongle has no trouble connecting to my wireless with full signal strength (4 bars!). it was plug-and-play with Windows 10, didn't need to download anything. this computer came loaded with 8 but I upgraded to 10 Prior to purchasing this wireless adapter

My Windows 7/64bit did not recognize the dongle. Not a problem, I thought, a mini-CD is included with the Windows driver and a "utility application" on it. I installed the driver and the utility app and then went through several hours of frustration trying to get the thing to work reliably at something better than dial-up speed. I even removed and re-installed it twice without any improvement.

Here's what finally made it work...install the driver ONLY, do NOT install the utility app. Windows 7 sets it all up automatically as soon as it has the driver. It works great when you install it this way.

Ed

good

Not bad. I can pick up wireless much farther from the source with this than I could before. The price was good and it is a good size. I am very glad I got this.

Worked great; didn't realize it lit up so brightly, kind of a bummer since I was looking for a product that would blend in.

Great price! shipped fast! It also comes with an install disc and great instructions. I was doing an install on a Windows 7 OS...followed the directions...and it was confusing because some of the things they were referring to were not available on the install. So after trying their way...I then messed with it for 5 mins, and ta-da! Connected! So docking one star for the crazy confusing, but appreciated directions...but I would buy this again.

Great device that instantly connects to WiFi without fail on a Linux Mint 17.3 operating system.

One quick caveat: On a dual-boot operating system, if the Panda Wireless USB Adapter is plugged into a USB port when booting the computer, the bootloader on our computer will not function and no operating systems will appear; the Panda Wireless USB adapter is somehow interfering with the boot loading sequence and the computer display remains blank. The cure for this problem on our dual-boot system is to unplug the Panda adapter before booting the system and then plugging the adapter in after the operating system has loaded.

Once the operating system has loaded and the Panda WiFi adapter is plugged into a USB port it's off to the races with fast and consistent WiFi connection and speed. No drivers were needed with Linux Mint 17.3, it was a quick plug and play. We've used several wireless USB adapters over the years and this one is the best we've seen so far (small USB WiFi adapters the size of a thumb-drive all seem to fail over time, probably due to the great amount of heat they produce internally.)

On a single boot computer (a machine running one operating system), there probably won't be any bootloader issues so you might not have to unplug the Panda Wireless USB Adapter before turning on the computer, but if you do experience a problem with the operating system booting up, just unplug the Panda adapter until the machine loads.

The Panda 300Mbps wireless N USB Adapter is a solid performing WiFi adapter and works with Linux Mint, so will work with Ubuntu and likely other Debian derivatives without needing to add WiFi drivers.

I bought this to use on a Debian Linux machine. It did not work immediately, and the drivers included were not helpful, but with the appropriate apt-update I was able to get this to work. It's not the strongest WiFi adapter, and I found to get a 5-bar signal I needed to put it on a USB extension above the desk. But it does work, and has been reliable. I've not tested network speeds through it, but for what I've used it for it's been fine.

I got this mainly because I needed a wifi connection for Linux on my desktop PC. I dual boot Windows 7 and Kubuntu 14.04. I'm quite happy with this device. It is truly plug and play under Kubuntu 14.04: I didn't have to install anything. I just plugged it in and Kubuntu found nearby hotspots. From there, I just logged into the wifi network and was connected. Regarding Windows 7, I did what one or two other reviewers did: downloaded the latest driver from the manufacturer website, installed it, and **then** plugged the adapter into a USB port. From there, it was the same experience as Kubuntu.

Under Windows 7, the connection seems quirky at times, though I am not sure since I have had this for only about two days. I tried it out with Netflix, and it seemed to handle that kind of video streaming fine. Under Kubuntu, the connection is great. It seems fast and, like Windows 7, video streaming seems to be no problem for the device.

Overall, I'm very happy with it. Even if it lasts only a few months, the inexpensive price tag makes it easy to just get a replacement down the road (I'm thinking of getting another one as a backup), and with the easy setup under both operating systems I use, as well as the strong connectivity, I can highly recommend it.

UPDATE: Just ran Linux Mint 18 (Mate) live from disc, and the adapter works like a charm under that, too: plug and play, no software or driver installation needed.

It seems to have a high error rate resulting in poor speed and reliability. Unfortunately, the errors sometimes cause my browser to freeze or the graphics to become useless.
I think I'll get the better quality adapter. It's not quite as compact but the extra cost will probably be worth it.
I'm about 25 ft from my router but this adapter only has 3 of 5 bars. The internal adapter on another laptop has 5 bars from the same location.
UPDATE:
I have been in contact with the manufacturer and was told that it is in fact a short distance wireless adapter. Their representative helped me troubleshoot the problem and it just doesn't have the range. It's okay for some places, just not my home where the router is downstairs, the other side of a wall.
After spending some time with them troubleshooting the problem we have agreed to upgrade to a more powerful model. I hope that works better.

Works great after you figure out how to install. Little frustrating at first to get to work properly with Windows 7. Kept losing connection and would not connect after it work up. However this is how to fix.

BEFORE plugging the device into your computer, download the latest driver and install the driver ONLY. REBOOT. Plug in the device and it will set it up correctly. If you plug in the device first then install the driver you will be frustrated.

Did get instant customer support when I emailed them.

Purchased this item December of 2014. It served it's purpose well for about 2 years, but has been dropping connection more and more frequently as of now (FEB 2017). My router is a dual band 2.4GHz/5GHz. Other computers and laptops on the network have better connection, especially on the 5g band. That being said, 2 years of good use at this price (and continued use at about 90% uptime) WAS a good deal in 2014, but now I would say that you're much better off buying 600Mbps dual band 802.11ac wifi adapter, now that they cost around $20.

Don't even have to install software (Windows 10 32 bit) . Purchased this for a friends old laptop.

Update: I just purchased another one of these for my laptop (Windows 7 64 bit) - Installed driver only; works without a hitch.

Update: It kinda fizzled out after about 4 months; somewhat disappointed. There are other "dongles" on the market for the same or lesser price that are flush to the USB port, and, as a result, will not twist and bend.

This worked great on Windows 7, but has been giving me grief on Windows 10. I of course suspected drivers, and did a full uninstall-reinstall from the Panda Wireless website- it hasn't seemed to help.

The issue is that throughput speeds are sometimes significantly slower then they should be. I test with my cell phone while sitting at my desk and the connection is running full speed, so it doesn't seem to be a networking issue. Windows 10 often reports poor signal, which is strange because the router/switch is a mere 10 feet away. This same problem did not happen on Windows 7, the connection and speed were always rock solid.

I admitted defeat on Windows 10 in place upset, and just did a clean install. Most of my other issues were resolved (it was, after all, a very well used installation of Windows 7, needed a good clean wipe anyways). However, the problem with the device is still there.

I would gladly rate this 5 stars if I found out the issue was not the device, but rather something on my computer or network. However, I fear it's a driver issue, and will await an updated driver for Windows 10.

I ordered this USB wireless adapter because my previous Linksys AE1200 USB adapter would not work with Windows 10. If you have recently upgraded from XP, Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8.x then this adapter may be just what you need. Be aware however that installation is not for the faint of heart. It is promoted as a simple plug and play device. It most certainly is not. It comes with a mini CD with a PDF file describing the installation for everything but Windows 10. Windows 10 is unique and requires some modest expertise in translation from all the other operating systems. Several emails to the company were promptly answered but they offered only generic replies and referred me to the installation disk. I already looked at the installation disk and had difficulty figuring out what I must do for my particular desktop machine. After several days of pondering, I tackled it again and finally was able to install the driver using the Windows installation utility. I was not at all clear that the drivers on the disc were the most current so images of my driver version under device managers was sent to the tech support department at their request but they failed to acknowledge receipt nor proceed with the directions. Fortunately, I knew that my machine was capable of using this adapter and simply needed directions for getting the drivers matched with my Windows 10 operating system. In summary:
Pros: very sturdy and professional looking USB adapter. Packaging was professional. Mini CD was provided along with a Windows utility installer and a PDF file manual.

Cons: device is not plug-and-play as advertised. Installation of the drivers cannot be accomplished by simply asking the computer to retrieve drivers from the mini CD. Directions for Windows 10 are not included on the disc. You have to guess what operating system works best for you. Since most of us will have recently upgraded from a previous Windows operating system to the latest Windows 10 or have just purchased a new laptop or desktop that is in need of a wireless adapter for one reason or another, such installation directions should be front and center on the PDF file.

received your product on time.
I received this product on time. I bought it based on user's review.
I plugged it to my desktop (just upgraded to Windows 10). This desktop use an on-board wireless card. The signal is weak (1 bar). That's why I would like to buy an external USB wireless adapter. After installing the driver and utility, scanning the signals, it can find my neighbor signals, but not mine. After rebooting a few times, and scan a few times, it get my signal (by luck). The signal is strong (96%). However, if I reboot the machine, the the connection disappear. It took me an effort to rescan signal to get the signal again.
When I get the connection, I have problem with the web page retrieval (E.g. yahoo.com). It takes 5 times longer to retrieve yahoo.com page comparing with my internal onboard wireless. This is very frustrating.
I don't know if this problem is related to Windows 10 or something else.

Doesn't work all the time. Can crash the system.Might be a problem with my PC though.

Not working on my ubuntu machine.

...but it crapped out after fewer than 6 months. I bought this for my children's old desktop PC so they could connect wirelessly to the home network. It worked great for several months, the speed was fine and the connection pretty steady. However, it stopped working completely and without warning about 5 months in. Bought them a new PC that had a wireless adapter built-in. Much better.

Of course this is an inexpensive item, but I spent twice as much as necessary to get 300 Mbps. This adapter is about half the speed of my cell phone's adapter and considerably less than than half the speed of the 150 Mbps built-in adapter of the laptop I bought it for. I tried both the Panda driver and the built in Windows driver.

UPDATE: With the latest driver from the Panda website and a tweak or two from their support, the Panda is now slightly faster than the built-in adapter. I suppose that's pretty good because the very helpful Panda support technician said that the built-in adapter has a big antenna.

I am using Windows 8.1, and while it does say it is plug and play I still downloaded and installed the drivers before I plugged it in, based on suggestions from other Amazon reviewers. This resulted in it detecting and setting up my wifi without any hassle. However, I am getting network speeds of about 35 mbps on my home network, trying to transfer files from my NAS in the next room, ~12 feet away with a strong signal.

I bought this to avoid resorting to needing to walk back and forth with a flash drive all the time, but I was expecting performance at or near the 300 mbps claim and I am not getting anywhere near it. I originally plugged it into a USB 2.0 port and saw improvement when I switched to a USB 3.0 port, but not nearly the improvement necessary to be satisfied with my purchase. I have used a TP-Link 300mbps USB adapter in the past and it performed to my expectations, I should have spent the few extra bucks and gone with them instead.

I had high opes for this product but I am disappointed in it's performance and the annoyance trying to get it working. First off, the micro cd with the drivers on it will not even go into my pc because I have a tower with a vertical drive. the disc falls out before I can close the door and I fear it would get stuck in there anyway. I tried leaning my drive on it's side and it still did not work. I do not know how I am supposed to download the drivers to get this thing to work online, when I cannot get online in the first place because I can't get the drivers from the disc either.

When I first plugged this item in, it worked for a few days seemingly fine. I turned my PC off for a few days, turned it on, and now it is not working. Nothing I have tried is working. I used an old wi-fi adapter I had (which still works) to download the drivers on the official website and I installed it, didn't work. Restarted and it still didn't work. I don't know what else to do and it would be nice if they would send you a normal sized cd-rom which works in all dvd drives out there. the mini cd is rarely used, cheap and not ideal for all users. Disappointing and I will look for another adapter elsewhere because this isn't the answer.

I can't go too deep into the ins-and-outs of different USB adapters. I purchased this adapter as an afterthought with my desktop PC and I've already put out for a wireless card. I've always been able to connect to our home router on the other side of the house with every device I've ever owned, from my laptop to my game consoles to my handhelds, but this adapter barely manages a passable connection with my main modem's wi-fi and wouldn't achieve more than a Limited (no internet access) connection to the Belkin router at the same range (this being the normally-superior connection option). I finally found a workaround in a program called a Virtual Router--by running this off of my laptop, I was able to use my laptop's wi-fi as a secondary router, basically bridging the wireless connection: my laptop's superior adapter picks it up, and then re-transmits the signal at a range the Panda has no trouble using it from.

So the primary weakness appears to be range, but I'd also like to mention that the Panda runs pretty dang hot, most particularly when extended downloads are in play. At one point I set it to download a Steam game and went to sleep; when I woke up I found the game had only partially downloaded and the adapter was registering as an unrecognized USB device, presumably a heat-induced malfunction.

As a budget wireless adapter for limited connectivity time--say if you want to use it at the coffee shop or in college class for lightweight wi-fi--it's not a totally bad option. One thing I noticed was that I got better performance out of the Panda after going into Device Manager, selecting "uninstall" on the Panda USB drive, and then putting in the installation mini-CD and installing the drivers from there (and ONLY the drivers--Windows 8.1 comes with more than sufficient wireless internet management, and I've heard the Panda software isn't very good).

For a desktop or for more connection-intensive activities such as long downloads or video livestreaming, I would definitely recommend something a little more "hardcore."

As a side note, don't be too dazzled by that 300-megabits-per-second connectivity. First of all, that is not the same as a megaBYTE (which would be written all in capital letters: MBps as opposed to Mbps). Second of all, that only applies to the connection to your router. Make sure to check what sort of connection you can achieve in your desired network before putting out for a higher-end or higher-performing adapter. It might be handy as a "just in case" but if you're not capable of achieving the best connection to your router in the first place, getting an adapter that can achieve a higher connection mostly amounts to untapped potential in the end. Just a thing to keep in mind if you're shopping for cheap, efficient hardware rather than top-of-the-line stuff. Always be conscious of your needs versus the hardware's capabilities.

One of the worst purchases. Did not what on OSX 10.5.4 as advertised

very old version

My Win10 laptop detected it originally and it worked for about 5 minutes, then it stopped being recognized in Device Manager.

A piece of junk. I installed it and the driver, and it wouldn't detect my Wi-Fi network. I uninstalled and re-installed the driver at least 3 times, but still didn't work. Troubleshooting guide was not helpful.

I am using this device on a new Jaguar board. I updated the drivers from your site for Windows 10, and the device will not work. when I click on the software, the OS will restart and then hangs.

It got hot and no longer recognized by the PC (running WIN 10) every time the downloading speed went beyond ~3MB/s for a short period of time(~15mins). I had to restart the PC to make it work again. Works fine during normal web browsing sessions I tried two of them, both had the same symptom.

Honest review.

I usually do not write reviews on products, unless it is extremely good or extremely bad.

Unfortunately in this case this device proved to last for 22 days which prompted me to write a review. Had it lasted for at least 3 months, I would have thought it to be worth the money for what it's worth and not write a review at all.
It worked great for about 2 weeks. Then it started randomly shutting off on its own until it completely died. I've tried plugging it in to multiple USB ports, and do keep in mind that I am very familiar with networking. This device also has a habit to corrupt its driver on some USB ports, which you have to then use a different one.

When it worked it worked great, maybe this was just a bad pick in the straw. However, I will listen to my instincts again stay and way from non-mainstream brands. It will save you much more money in the long run. I'll be sticking to my regular investments of great quality but expensive products.

There is nothing plug and play about this. Wasn't easy to set up. After I did get it set up, I removed it from the usb slot to place it into a more accessible ubs slot. Had to reenter the wifi SSID which should have been previously saved either to the device or to the computer. Finally, after having the device work for a few minutes it completely failed to work.

I can't recommend this product for use with Win XP. I downloaded and installed the most recent drivers was not able to get any connection in XP Pro SP3. So, I tried installing it in an old PC running a copy of XP that had all XP updates to the support cutoff and found it worked intermittently for a while and then stopped making a connection altogether . I didn't try it on other OS's. After a day and a half of fiddling with it, I returned it for a refund. When a device like this is designed to work on virtually all OS's of the last 15 years, its bound to have problems.