opinionated3's Full Review: Belkin (F5D8233-4) Wireless Router
Over the past five months we have gone through two different wireless routers in our home. The first was a Linksys and the other was a Netgear and unfortunately both suffered the same fate; loss of wireless connection. That meant we had to stretch Ethernet cables across the living room and connect them to the wired ports on the router so my wife and daughter could share our cable Internet connection.
I really didn't relish the thought of having to go out a buy another wireless router until one day I noticed a new wireless router appeared at Walmart. It was a new wireless technology and I was immediately intrigued. I did some checking online and became convinced that it was going to be my next choice of wireless router. The technology behind the new router is called 802.11n, which is an improvement on the 802.11g technology and according to the manufacturer of the router it offers unparalleled signal improvement. You see, our previous wireless router used the 802.11g technology which was limited in range and bandwidth.
I will get into the new technology in more detail a little later, but suffice it to say I am a believer in the new technology.
The specific router I purchased was the Belkin N Wireless Router and as with most of the Belkin products I have used in the past it has worked as advertised.
Belkin N Wireless Router F5D8233
Appearance
After owning Linksys and Netgear routers for the past couple of years, I was hoping for a change of pace as far as looks are concerned. The plain Jane look of the Linksys and Netgear routers got old fast, but the Belkin looks much cooler and it offers a much more contemporary look to it. One of the really cool features of the Belkin router is the way it indicates that status of your wireless connection. When everything is working smoothly all you see are 6 blue LED lit icons ( Security, Wireless, Wired, Router, Modem and Internet)and if there was a problem with any portion of the wireless system you will see an amber colored LED icon and it will be flashing. The router is very small in size and it can be placed most anywhere (one negative; the network cable that is included is very short) as long as it is close to your modem.
If you prefer to mount on a wall, you can use the two mounting holes on the bottom of the router and the two antennae are re positionable.
Installation
The installation and configuration of the router was surprisingly quick as compared to the other two wireless routers we have used. In less than 10 minutes from the time I pulled everything out of the package my wife and my daughters laptops were both connecting wirelessly to the Internet. That was considerably faster as compared to the 30-40 minutes it took me to setup the Linksys wireless router we used to have. Note: To complete the installation of the router you must have a PC connected to one of the wired Ethernet ports on the back of the router.
All I had to do was disconnect the modem cable and Ethernet cable from my desktop from the wired network port on the Netgear router and connect them to the Belkin router and pop in the CD and follow the steps on the CD and it was ready to go. If you are setting up a wireless router for the very first time, pay close attention to the setup guide that is included inside the package, it will explain and diagram the proper way to connect all of the cables.
Once I had the connection to the router established with my desktop PC it was time to configure the router setting, using the CD it will prompt you to log into the router using a web interface. Once logged in you will be able to setup what type of security to use to keep outsiders from connecting to your wireless router. I highly recommend you select the WPA option and select a passcode, this will make it easy for you to setup the wireless connections on each of the wireless devices you plan to connect to this router.
Once I had the router all setup it was time to install the wireless network adapters in my wife and daughters laptops. At the same time I purchased the router I also picked up two Belkin wireless N laptop adapter cards (you are not required to use the same brand as the router) for the two laptops that would be connecting to the router. Note: the N series router from Belkin is completely backwards compatible with all 802.11g and b series routers, but for the optimum connection speed you need to use N series adapter cards.
After getting the new adapter card loaded in my wife's laptop she got a big shock when she looked at the wireless connections speed; 300Mbps. You read that right, instead of seeing 54Mbps from her internal wireless adapter; she was now connecting at a blazing 300Mbps. My daughter didn't quite connect at the 300 Mbps, her was connecting at about 280Mbps. Not quite sure why the difference, but at least it wasn't 54Mbps.
My final thoughts
If you are in the market for a new wireless router to share your broadband Internet connection or to replace the current one you have, look no further than Belkin's N Series Wireless router, you will be glad you did. We were shocked at the increase of connection speed we received after setting everything up and the ease at which we set it up was a blessing.
As of right now, I cannot speak to the claim of increased range of the wireless signal, but if the increased speed is any indication, I believe that what ever Belkin claims it would be substantiated. The secret behind the N series wireless technology is what is called MIMO or Multi-input Multi-output. This technology uses multiples of the signals to increase the speed and range of the wireless signal. I don't claim to be an expert on wireless communications, but I have used it at work and at home in different types of applications.
This new N series technology is definitely worth looking into and I would recommend it to everyone wanting to go wireless at home or office.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 69.00 Driver Availability: Windows only
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