Axis OfficeBasic USB Wireless G review

Axis's OfficeBasic USB Wireless G lets you share a USB printer wirelessly on your network. It looks like a long mouse, but it doesn't take up much room and you can attach it to a wall for better reception.

As with many wireless print servers, the Wireless G can be tricky to install, particularly if you use it on a network where it won't get an IP address automatically. In this situation, the installation utility detects the print server but when you try to connect it says, "No print servers were found". Instead, you have to change your IP address to one in the same range as the print server's default address before you can connect.

The setup wizard then takes you through the installation. The steps are easy to follow and you can tell it which wireless network to join, as well as supplying the IP address and security settings. The OfficeBasic supports WEP and WPA-PSK, so you can connect it to any network. You can also control the server using its web-based management. This is the easiest way to make changes once it is connected to your network.

When you have saved the settings, you need to add a printer. To do this you simply install a printer in Windows in the usual way and tell it to use the LPT1 printer port. After the printer has installed its drivers, the Axis installation wizard installs a special dynamic link library (DLL) that redirects the printer port to the print server.

The server worked first time for us, but you need to repeat these steps for every computer that has to print. It's not quite as smooth as standard Windows printer sharing, where you can browse to a shared printer and install it automatically.

We had no trouble getting this print server to work on our network and the setup wizard makes installation fairly easy. But at £105 this is expensive. We recommend the Linksys Wireless-G PrintServer, which is £50 cheaper.