D-Link DSL-2740B review

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Verdict:

Great price, but not the best features or performance.

Review Date: 13 Feb 2009

Price when reviewed: inc VAT

Reviewed By: Orestis Bastounis

Our Rating 3 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

The DSL-2740B has been around slightly longer than other routers on test, and lacks new features such as dual band.

However, it's still a good 802.11n ADSL router. The built-in web interface offers some advanced features, such as port triggering - useful if you want to use computers on your network to host various services accessible over the Internet. The DSL-2740B also supports two dynamic DNS services, D-Link's own and DynDNS.org. Many users won't need these options, but for some they'll be a big draw.

Unlike with the DIR-855, the QoS engine provides a list of presets to choose from, as well as allowing you to create separate rule sets for wired and WiFi connections. The router also contains an SPI firewall to lock down Internet access for a specific machine or restrict incoming connections to your network to trusted sources only.

The advanced security options were backed up with fair performance and range. With our Centrino laptop, a decent speed of 47.74MBit/sec at close range dropped rapidly to a disappointing 13.9MBit/sec at 15 metres. With D-Link's own DGA 160 Wireless USB adapter, speeds saw a slight improvement. 52.67MBit/sec was very respectable at 1 metre, as was 20.87Mbit at 15 metres. We found the DSL-2740B on sale for just £45.89 including VAT, an attractive price if you don't need top features and performance.

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