Asus WiCast EW2000 Review

The WiCast was born as a result of efforts to reduce the amount of clutter and wires required to connect and stream content via devices. This ‘wireless’ device enables users to use a transmitter – receiver combination to view content from their laptop, Blu-ray player or camcorder on an HDTV or a projector; all while eliminating direct contact using wires. This may sound like a lot of fun, but is it as functional as recreational? Let’s find out. 

A brief visualization

Design and Build Quality

There’s not too much to delve into, out here really, except that they’re two glossy black boxes with the ASUS and WiCast branding on top. The transmitter and receiver have the same connectivity ports – a power slot, an HDMI slot and a mini USB slot. They also have the power LEDs and the WHDI LED that blinks, if there’s no connection and stays stable, if a connection is made. In case you’re troubleshooting, you might find the LEDs on the receiver section a little hard to see, but that’s a minor concern. 

A small footprint

In the package, you get two AC adaptors, a USB power Y cable, A Velcro band, a pouch, and two HDMI cables along with the transmitter and receiver unit. Quite a lot of wiring for a wireless unit, eh? The transmitter weighs 110 gram, while the receiver weighs 160 gram. Plus, both the devices have got a relatively small footprint, so it won’t look too bad sitting next to your HDTV or laptop. 

The transmitter and receiver

Features

The EW2000 works on the Wireless Home Digital Interface technology that allows streaming of up to 1080p video and 8 channels of audio with a latency period of less than 1 ms. The transmission distance is a cool 10 meters (or 32 feet), but the important thing to note is that there has to be line of sight. The transmitter requires a modest 4.75Watt of power, while the receiver requires 10 watts. The device has an operating frequency from 5.15 to 5.85GHz and a data rate of 3Gbps, which pretty much sums up the specifications part. 

Quite a few cables for a 'wireless' device

Setting up the EW2000 is quite easy. Plug-in the adaptors on both the devices, connect the HDMI cords to the respective peripherals and you’re good to go. No software installation or any kind of tweaking is required. But hey, so many connections for a ‘wireless device’? 

Alternatively the transmitter can be powered by the USB Y cable as well. They’ve given a really short HDMI cable, though, so in case you need to connect it to your CPU and put it on the desk at the same time, you’ll have to get another HDMI cable.  Anyway, that’s just the features, and with this device it’s the performance that really matters. Let’s check that out in the next section.