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Moving a larger 350MB AVI heralded similarly impressive results with the WLI-U2-KG54AI-3 taking 180 seconds for the transfer which translates to an average speed of 19.4Mbit/sec. The identical PC Card we tested from Buffalo back in September scored 20.1Mbit/sec. AOSS was again relatively unobtrusive increasing the time by just 20 seconds to 200 seconds (17.5Mbit/sec) fractions off the PC Card’s time of 196 seconds and rate of 17.9Mbit/sec.

I do have a gripe however – it would be good to have seen some storage integrated into the WLI-U2-KG54AI-3. That way you would always have a USB memory key and a WiFi adapter in your pocket. This kind of device does exist, so hopefully Buffalo will add some storage capacity to the next generation device.

Now, although the WLI-U2-KG54AI-3 doesn’t have any flash storage that you can make use of, it does have 4MB of storage embedded, and it’s here that the drivers are stored. When you plug the device into your USB port, it recognises the 4MB storage area as a CD-ROM with an ISO image on it. The WLI-U2-KG54AI-3 then initiates some kind of ISO extraction utility, and loads the drivers seamlessly.

Finally we come to value which I find a tricky thing to score. Earlier I said Buffalo had been helped by some web retailers and the reason for this is that Buffalo’s recommended retail price is a hefty £49.99, but there are a number of companies currently offering it at prices below £28 including VAT. This is something of a bargain, although not really due to Buffalo. Ultimately, this doesn’t matter because Buffalo took care of the hardware and the resellers have taken care of the value. My advice: snap one up while you can.

Verdict

Buffalo continues its run of high quality wireless networking gear with the WLI-U2-KG54AI-3. Its signal strength and transfer rates are both top notch and at current prices you’d be mad to miss out, even if I do still wish it had some storage.

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