SpeedTouch 585i review

SpeedTouch's 585i is a wireless router with a built-in ADSL modem. If you receive broadband through your phone line, you can plug your ADSL line into the 585i and share the Internet with all the PCs in your home network.

Setting up your broadband connection is easy. Simply run the software on the installation CD, enter your Internet user name and password. The software detects all the other settings for you and gets your ADSL line working. It couldn't be any simpler to set up.

Getting the wireless network up and running was, for the most part, just as easy. We connected our PC to the 585i using the Ethernet network cable supplied and opened the router's presentation page in Internet Explorer. Everything was simple, except finding the wireless settings. Once we got to where we thought they should be, we had to follow a less than obvious link for a couple more clicks .

This is a shame, as the presentation page is generally very well thought-out. This gives you an overview of your wireless network and is laid out as a diagram, showing you which computers are connected to your wired network and which to your wireless network. This is the best way we've seen of presenting this information. The router has all the normal security functions - though we were a bit surprised to find that the firewall was disabled by default, which may catch out novice users.

It performed reasonably well in our speed tests. In our short range test, it took 55 seconds to transfer 100MB of files over an encrypted wireless network, which is a very good time. Unfortunately, this tailed off in our long range test to a lengthy two minutes and five seconds - over a minute slower than the US Robotics router in our Best Buy list.

The 585i is easy to set up and use, and performed well in our short range tests, but its long range tests let it down.

Author: Katl Wright