I bought this adapter the same week as my Surface, and I have been extremely pleased with it. As an IT guy, I spend a lot of time supporting other people's networks and needed a way of quickly connecting for tasks like testing, router configuration and troubleshooting. Overall Review: Back about 6 months ago I bought a Surface Pro (Microsoft's Windows 8 Pro Tablet) which sadly doesn't have internal Ethernet. But in Windows, it seems like you have the advanced configure options to turn VLan Tags on, but there is no entry for the VLan number.

There are some others that CLAIM 802.1q, but just plain do not work in Windows.

Overall Review: Cannot see why it is so hard to find an adapter that is truly VLan 802.1q capable. Highly recommended for anyone needing a versatile network adapter requiring 802.1q!

In Windows, it will also strip tags automagically if you plug it into a untagged port on the same network it is configured and tagged for. I have a Netgear G511 (PCMICA) card for my Toshiba that does VLans, but needed one that worked on newer laptops that no longer come with a Card Bus. Not to many people see an advantage to that, but I personally wouldn't be without that capability. Makes it easy to jump on a trunk port on a switch or router and use a particular VLan on the trunk.

It is very useful on a laptop that you use for VLan testing and troubleshooting. I have tested more than several trying to find one that could be used across platforms that handled 802.1q tags correctly. Pros: Finally, a USB to NIC adapter that handles VLans correctly.

Startech usb to ethernet mac