Trendnet TEW-812DRU review

The router also has network share (SMB) and FTP server features, which you’ll find in the Administrator settings and can use to share a USB hard disk connected to the port at the back, turning the router into a very simple NAS device. You can also share a USB printer, but will have to install the Windows-only Trendnet control utility on every system that wishes to access the printer.

We tested the router’s wireless performance with both our Centrino 2 reference laptop’s integrated wireless chipset and a £25 Trendnet TEW-805UB USB Wi-Fi adaptor. Using our laptop’s own wireless adaptor, which supports 802.11n 5GHz but not 802.11ac, our 5GHz test produced transfer speeds of 86.99Mbit/s at 1m and 82.33Mbit/s at 10m but the connection was unstable at 20m in our heavily congested testing environment. Our 2.4GHz test using the same internal adaptor gave us 41.3Mbit/s at 1m, 37.6Mbit/s at 10m and 15.9Mbit/s at 20m. When it tested it with the Asus PCE-AC68 PCI-E wireless adaptor, it achieved a transfer speed of 80.4Mbit/s at 20m, making it one of the fastest performers at this range.

With a clear interface, surprisingly low price, effective wireless performance and plenty of features, this is an excellent choice if you want to get into the world of high-speed Wi-Fi. However, BT Home Hub 5 maintained a more stable connection during some of the tests carried out in our interference congested wireless test environment.