On our desk this week - 4

Gigabyte GN-MD01

Do you have an Xbox? How about Xbox 360 or PlayStation 2? Play online? You'll surely have encountered the joys of getting a console online with but a primitive UI to set up the net connection. You're also severely limited in your choice of wireless devices: the Xbox 360 wireless game adaptor costs around £70 and is nothing more than a USB wifi dongle.

Gigabyte have come up with a product that is designed to make connecting a game console to a wireless network easier. Let's face it, who wants to have a home network full of wireless devices, then have to run miles of cable for the gaming console? If your router is upstairs and your console downstairs with the TV, you certainly won't want to be running cable.

This adaptor from Gigabyte comes in at around half the price of the official Xbox 360 adaptor, but rather than connecting over USB, it connects over ethernet. You can hook it up to a computer to configure the network settings and the MAC address, then when that's done, simply plug it into the ethernet port on your console and the wireless will kick in.

You can also use the adaptor to act as a wireless access point if you only have a wired router. Switches on the side of the device can be used to switch between the functions and as shortcuts to common controls. In practice, we found that the MD01 was easy to configure and worked first time with the minimum of hassle. We were able to use it to get our Xbox online and play Halo 2 with no worries, and we were also able to configure it to broadcast a wireless network from a standard, wired router that we connected to our ADSL.

The device works over the 802.11g configuration, providing a theoretical 54mbit bandwidth (and a practical 15-20, in our experience of a variety of 'g' devices). However, if all you're doing is gaming online, you can pick up 802.11b devices that are cheaper and still won't limit your gaming by bandwidth. In general, you should always go for the fastest standard, but for gaming you won't necessarily need that. 802.11g provides around 10-15mbit performance, whereas console games are designed to run at <1mbit.

All in all, if you can see this for around £30 and you have need for it, there's nothing to prevent us recommending it.

Name: Gigabyte GN-MD01
Buy it from: Scan
Cost: £40
Verdict: If you're looking to get your games console online and you need 54mbit bandwidth, this does the job admirably.