D-Link DBT-120 Wireless Bluetooth USB Adapter
by D-Link
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Our Price: $50.00 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of D-Link DBT-120 Wireless Bluetooth USB Adapter
Customer Review: Windows drivers are flawed; DLink support is useless
Summary: 1 Stars
I'm an avid user of electronic gadgets. This is the first review I'm writing online about any product, because my experience with this product was so bad. I bought the dlink adapter to try out the bluetooth functionality on my Sony Ericsson T616 phone. From the beginning, driver install (developed by Widcomm I believe) in Windows XP was painful. It hung during first installation of drivers; after some finagling, I got the installation to complete.
The bluetooth discovery was working at this point, I could see my phone, etc. Unfortunately, that's all that was working as the driver install had killed all other network services on my machine. Internet explorer was not loading; I couldn't browse the file system through "My Computer" or manage processes through Task Manager!
Dlink support to the rescue: after several rounds of the ticket getting "escalated", they finally told me "it was a virus". What an amazing coincidence that must have been because the problems started right after I installed the bluetooth drivers. I did an XP system restore to the point right before bluetooth driver install: this got explorer loading at least, even though I still did not have internet access. After some searching online, I found a fix to repair winsock, this fixed my problem.
My experience with this product was terrible. It may not happen in your case, but why take the chance? There are several other equivalent USB bluetooth adapters out there, I'd recommend anyone to try another one first.
Customer Review: does NOT work with Vista! (and no one will support it)
Summary: 1 Stars
Windows Vista doesn't completely recognize the device when you plug it in, and while it then recognized my Bluetooth headset it would not communicate with the headset at all. When I tried installing the software from the included CDROM, Vista blocked the installation as incompatible, and Vista sent me to a TOSHIBA website! Oops. The drivers which were installed show up in Device Manager as Toshiba drivers, not DLink.
Toshiba absolutely refuses to talk to me about it, and DLink says it will not work with Vista and I should return it for a refund.
DLink has NO PLANS TO SUPPORT VISTA. They don't have drivers, they say they're not working on drivers, and they say there is no schedule under which they intend to ship drivers. (OK, all of that was said by someone in India, and who knows if they know actual DLink policy.)
Others have said this product works with Vista. Well, in my case (a new HP Media Center PC), not only does the software fail to install, it modifies my desktop and screws things up bad enough that I had to use System Restore to back up to a checkpoint. Nice feature of Vista... checkpoints are automatically created often enough that you don't have to remember to make one before installing.
Lesson learned. If their website says "XP SP2 or higher", that means it only works on XP. Nowhere else. Now I wonder if Amazon will take it back?
Customer Review: my 4 hours installing the Vista driver
Summary: 3 Stars
I just received Rev. C, the latest design, of this adapter, but the enclosed instructions and software were not for Windows Vista, just XP. I have Vista Home Premium for 64bit. I attempted to use the setup disc and found that if you have Vista, you should not follow the installation instructions nor use the enclosed set up disk. The packaging included an orange notice that if one has a problem installing the adapter to go to the D-Link support site. That was the tip I did not pick up on. I should have assumed there would be a problem as there was. Vista told me that the driver on the disc is provided by Toshiba, not D-Link, and Vista will not let it be installed. I did attempt to install it and after 4+ hours of trying I went to the Toshiba web site and downloaded the latest driver for Vista and Rev. C of the adapter. That driver package includes the driver for the 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Vista. However the first setup.exe file you find attempts to remove the Toshiba driver provided with Vista, but Vista stops that file from completing the removal. Then I found a 2nd setup.exe file deeper into the Zip file. That one worked, finally. D-Link should have included installation instructions for Vista and all of the drivers. I will not buy another D-Link item again.Customer Review: Reliable and Easy to Use
Summary: 5 Stars
Among the bluetooth adapters available at the time I made this purchase, the D-Link had the best track record. It's not the rock-bottom cheapest, but believe me when I say the few extra dollars are worth it in headache prevention.
The package comes with three things: the dongle, which is about the size of your thumb knuckle (smaller than the average thumb drive); a usb extension cable, which is really handy if your usb ports are a little close together; the driver disc.
One word of caution: ignore the setup instructions-do NOT install the driver disc!! For some devices, particularly smart phones like the Blackberry, the D-Link drivers will not work properly. Have no fear, though- this actually makes things easier for you. You just plug in the dongle and away you go. Windows XP has built-in support that works flawlessly with my Blackberry Curve. I sync my phone, transfer files, and everything else without any problems whatsoever.
Overall I am extremely happy with this device and would buy it again without hesitation.
PS- I have heard of problems with this device and Windows Vista. All I can say there is Vista is already notorious for bugs, problems, etc. If you're using Vista, consider "downgrading" to XP.
Customer Review: The very worst product I purchased in 2004
Summary: 1 Stars
Thankfully - I was able to return it to the store after 5 days. So what was wrong with it -
Firstly - for hardware revision B4, the software just would not install (some error about security code not being valid). Wasted many hours over this. A call to D-link tech support resulted in an email from them that only repeated steps I had already tried. Not very helpful and more waste of time.
I wrote back in a stern manner - and tech support finally got back with a solution that involved installing the older driver along with a security code that they generated.
OK - I was willing to live with this much. When I tried to use the device with the Jabra 250 BT headphone, I managed to get a range of around 18 feet and there was absolutely no signal one room away. Even within a room - signal was weak by the time I went to the end of the room. What was this claim about 30 feet range? This was awful performance and I decided I had enough and returned the product.
Fast forward to my Linksys USBBT100 - . Firstly - it installed in a snap. The Jabra 250 now works through the furthest corner of the other rooms - no breakup - nothing. Boy - what a glaring difference.
I for one will stay away from D-link for a long time to come!