It's a cooperative effort, and if you have a larger home, you should start by ensuring you have an excellent long-range router.Įven if you have a powerful router or mesh Wi-Fi system that provides solid coverage for your home, the USB Wi-Fi adapter still has to do its part, and not all adapters are equal in this regard. It's also up to your router to provide the coverage you need, and a USB Wi-Fi adapter isn't working magic if your router can't get a signal out to it in the first place. This is something of a double-edged sword. A USB Wi-Fi adapter allows you to move around your home, so you will want one that offers the range you need. Still, if you're sitting beside your router anyway, you could just as easily plug in an Ethernet cable and get even better performance. Most USB Wi-Fi adapters work reasonably well when close to your router.
Further, even computers with modern Wi-Fi specs can be hampered by poor internal antenna placement, so an external USB Wi-Fi adapter can improve your range and performance. A USB Wi-Fi adapter may give your computer a new lease on life, especially if you hope to stream 4K videos or do any serious online gaming. However, for laptops with poor Wi-Fi hardware or PCs that typically don't include Wi-Fi support, a USB Wi-Fi adapter will help bridge that gap.įor example, you might have an older laptop that doesn't offer dual-band Wi-Fi or faster 802.11ac speeds. The truth is, if your computer already provides reliable Wi-Fi, there's almost certainly no need to add an external adapter. Since most laptops already have Wi-Fi built-in, you may wonder what the point is of a USB Wi-Fi adapter. Lifewire / Rebecca Isaacs Why Buy a USB Wi-Fi Adapter?
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