The versatile Linksys Wireless Presentation Player is the ultimate presentation tool. In the conference room, the Player connects via a standard VGA connector to your projector or monitor. Any wireless-equipped computer within range (and with permission) can take control of the Player and project live screen images of any application running on the PC. Give presentations, review the numbers in your spreadsheets, and collaboratively edit documents at up to 1024x768 resolution and 24-bit color. For truly interactive meetings and brainstorming sessions, the Player allows any member of the wired or wireless network group to take instant control of the projector, with no cable-swapping hassle. Go around the room for Status Reports, or let the inspiration flow in an ad-hoc idea exchange. In a classroom setting, the Player allows a teacher to unobtrusively supervise each students' progress without physically peeking over shoulders. The Wireless Presentation Player can also act as a stand-alone presentation device. Using the included utility, upload your PowerPoint presentations directly into the Player's 32 megabyte non-volatile memory. Then leave your PC at home! Take the Player to the boardroom or your customer's site, plug it into a projector or monitor, and run your presentation directly from the Player using the included infrared wireless remote. It even includes a built-in laser pointer to help you hit the highlights! As a wireless interactive meeting facilitator or as a stand-alone presentation tool, the Linksys Wireless Presentation Player helps you get your point across.
1 From a Sysadmin
We are a school district, and our intent was to place the unit on a mobile laptop lab with a projector. The students would each have a wireless laptop, as would the teacher.
Our hope was make classes more dynamic by allowing the students and teachers to put their screen on the wall with just a mouse click. Everybody could participate.
Alas, it can be done, but it was not that easy. In the end, we had to return the unit because the learning curve for the students was too big.
The drawbacks were;
1. The kids needed to know the WEP key
2. The SSID on the unit was half static,
This killed our naming convention
3. The method for getting your screen on the wall is
very manual
4. The teacher could select a student and put their
screen on the wall, assuming the student properly
connected to the unit.
5. The unit seemed to only work over the wireless network.
wired connections failed.
6. From an IT view, this is the biggest problem,
The unit will only work as an AP.
It will not work as a client or a bridge.
This means that the unit MUST be the gateway to
the wired network.
The problem with point number 6 is that the unit is then responsible for handling all traffic to and from the network. This meant that we had to run a network cable from the wall to the center of the room to the unit connected to the projector. It also meant that as students surfed the Internet, accessed large files from the network or printed large documents, the presentation quality suffered. It also meant that if we have wireless roaming, this unit would force the client to drop their current association and reassociate with the presentation player...as if the presentation player were the center of the digital universe. In a medical field, this may prove incompatible with HIPPA compliance, and in our organization, it was against our security policies.
We replaced the unit with a WPG54G with pretty much the same results - the only difference was that the wired connections worked.
It seems suited for a single person to use, not for a classroom to share.
2 Mindless incompetence for technical support.
After wasting hours on the phone, exchanging the unit, then wasting more time swapping emails, this is what Linksys emailed me:
"I am very sorry for the inconvenience. I would like to inform you that our engineers are aware with that issue and they are on the process of creating a solution for that but up to now we still don't know when will be the date of release of the solution for your technical difficulty. Rest assured that we shall continue to exert our best efforts in order to meet and even exceed your needs and expectations. Please try to frequently visit our updates and releases regarding the firmware/drivers and solution for your technical difficulty."
I finally found a workaround. I kept the WPG12 because I can't find anything else to replace it at the moment. Stay away from Linksys unless you want to be on your own: You'll have no documentation and no support.
3 Don't waste your money and time
I just purchased this item without first reading the reviews on this website. Let me just say that I received this item today and am returning it tomorrow. Like many others, I had no problem setting up the Presentation Player and connecting my wireless laptop. But, when I tried to actually display my screen, the device simply would not work. I talked with tech support and after insulting my intelligence by asking if I actually had a wireless network card installed, they proceeded to ask if the card I had was a Linksys brand. Of course, it wasn't and they thought my idea of returning the product wasn't a bad idea.
Linksys usually has a good reputation for network and wireless products - this one is a real LOSER!
4 Fantastic with a wireless Tablet PC
I was worried when I purchased this product about the disappointing review it received. However, after intensively testing the product in a classroom setting, it worked very well and I am now quite impressed by its capabilities. For the first time, I am able to walk around the classroom with my wireless Tablet PC while managing a presentation, writing over it with digital ink and keeping track of the pace my lecture, uninterrupted. The students were having a blast. Before that, I had to walk back to where my Tablet PC was to draw or to change slides. The Wireless Presentation Player provides an extended interactivity to any presentation. I suppose at this point one should not expect too much from the 11Mbps transmission of the 802.11b protocol. If there are not too many animations in the PowerPoint presentation, the wireless link works just fine. Further, using the Basic Color setting speeds things up significantly. Since I do not believe in cluttered PowerPoint presentations full of useless diversions, this product delivers exactly what I expected.
5 Poor support
Stay away from this device and Linksys in general for any of the more complicated networking products. This device does not work as advertisted, the display is very slow and has very poor resolution, and the network setup was a nightmare. We connected this device to our internal LAN as recommended, and it randomly decided to try to act as a DHCP server, causing many of our users (including the CEO and CIO!) to loose all network connectivity when they didn't get the correct IP information from our real DHCP server. This device is not suppose to be a DHCP server, so the web interface and documentation (which is also totally inadequate) doesn't provide any mention of it. When I called tech support to try to figure out how this happened, all the twit on the phone would tell me is that 'it isn't an Access Point'. BUYER BEWARE!
6 Good idea that turned out bad
Couple of things you need to know before you consider buying one of these:
1. Picture quality is poor (pixely), even in true color and no matter what, screens have blueish shadow that you can't get rid of.
2. Control Utility that actually sends the signal to the player from your machine (in wired or wireless setup) will eat up 70% or more of your processing power, bringing machine down to a crawl. I tested this with 4 different computers and all exhibited the same problem.
3. Not all Wireless NICs will work with the player; you're better off investing in Link WNIC if you want some kind of wireless functionality.
Overall, great idea that went wrong. Link support is nonexistent and I couldn't deal with slowness issue. Sent the player (and Wireless USB adapter that I bought for this) back the very same day.
Stay AWAY.
7 Slow, limited, buggy and doesn't work.
The WPG12 looked great by the specs, but I was very disappointed upon using. I returned it the same day I got it. Here are the problems:
1. Limited 16MB internal storage
2. Remote control is terrible. The unit takes several seconds to respond to most commands from the remote. The mouse is difficult to use.
3. Stored presentation slides appear only as images. Bullets, animations, transitions and all other effects are lost.
4. Switching between slides is very slow. You press the next button and it can take 10 seconds for the next slide to appear. This is a major inconvenience during a presentation.
5. Controlling the presentations from wireless laptops or wired laptops did NOT work. I could only download presentations to the player. I could not get the feature that allows you to run the presentation from the laptop to work.
6. The software is very buggy and crashed several times.
