Belkin Surf N150 review

Channel-bonding is enabled by default, so we turned this off for our testing. We left on auto channel selection, and this did a good job of picking a clear channel. At one metre we could transfer files at a quick 44Mbit/s with both our Centrino 2 laptop and Belkin’s own Surf USB wireless micro adaptor (part code F7D1102ed, £20), but the USB adaptor wasn’t so good at range, managing 25Mbit/s compared to 38Mbit/s with our laptop. The Surf USB held the signal better at long range, however, transferring at 6Mbit/s where the Centrino 2 chipset could only manage 3Mbit/s.

The Surf N150 has comprehensive port forwarding under ‘Virtual Servers’ in the Firewall page. An impressive number of games and applications are pre-configured to work with the router. It also supports a DMZ, and Dynamic DNS using the DynDNS service.

One feature we really liked is the Self Healing option, which lets you set a schedule by which the router will re-initialise its connection. This will refresh your connection to your ISP and re-acquire a wireless channel, and you can also set it to check for firmware updates. It’s a fancy name for an automatic reset, but it’s still useful.

The Surf N150 is a bit more expensive than other non-ADSL N-lite routers we’ve seen, such as the TP-Link TL-WR741ND, but its easy setup process, fast wireless speeds and clear, well-organised interface make it worth the extra. The ADSL version is more expensive, but if you’re after a painless router experience you should spend the £20 premium over last month’s Budget Buy award-winning TP-Link TD-W8961ND.