US Robotics Wireless Ndx Router review

Verdict:

Review Date: 15 Aug 2007

Price when reviewed: inc VAT

Reviewed By: David Ludlow

Our Rating 2 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

US Robotics' Wireless Ndx Router is the company's first Draft-N router and the first major update to its range since it launched its MaxG router around 18 months ago.

The Ndx uses the same silver case as the MaxG, but there are now three antennas rather than one.

There's no CD configuration tool, so configuration has to be performed through the webpage. The thorough setup wizard takes you through internet and security settings, though.

There's also a Secure Easy Setup (SES) mode, which lets you automatically transmit wireless settings to a compatible client. It's activated by a button on the back of the router, and you just need to run the compatible client. It's similar to Buffalo's AOSS and worked perfectly with our test US Robotics PC card.

Testing with our Centrino notebook produced good results at near and far ranges, but we couldn't get a stable connection at 25m. Switching to the Wireless Ndx PC Card (around £45) produced even worse results and we couldn't get a fast connection at all. We noticed that the card was connecting only at 130Mbit/s. Checking the wireless settings in the web-management page, we found that the automatic wireless settings had put the router into 20MHz mode. We forced it into 40MHz mode, and the client software told us we were connected at 270Mbit/s. However, running our tests produced slower transfer results, so we switched back to the 20MHz mode. The results were no better than we'd expect from a standard 802.11g router. It was disappointing that we couldn't get a connection at 25m.

These poor results make it impossible to recommend this router. Linksys's WAG325N Wireless-N ADSL Gateway costs a similar amount and has much better Centrino and Draft-N performance.

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