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Wednesday 13 March 2013

Review: Belkin AC1200DB 11ac router

My full review of Belkin's first two-stream (867Mbps) 11ac router, the AC1200DB, has just been published on Computeractive's website (although I actually wrote the review some time ago). It is a decent router, but has no particularly outstanding features. Its street price has come down quite a bit since I looked at it, which does make it a bit more attractive, as it's now one of the cheapest 11ac models available. I think I'd probably opt for it over the similarly-priced D-Link DIR-865L, purely on the basis that the D-Link didn't work well with my SIP phone service (a problem with the SIP ALG, I think - disabling that fixed it).

The AC1200DB's 11ac performance was excellent (I tested it using Linksys and Netgear client bridges), and not far off the three-stream devices I've seen, but 11n performance was very average in my usual noisy domestic test environment (I'm getting used to this - it seems that since the Wi-Fi Alliance enforced 'good neighbour' policies on vendors, 11n performance has plateaued). At the time of testing, Belkin had no matching USB client adapter, but that's now been rectified and I hope to review a sample here in the near future.

Over 160Mbps at close range

Still managed over 40Mbps at 25m

It includes free Norton Contentsafe parental controls, which are all-or-nothing  controls that affect all PCs


Odd choice of wording in the setup wizard!

It can only be used standing up, there's no wall-mount capability

The new Belkin logo features prominently

Find it on Amazon:

Saturday 9 March 2013

Review - Netgear R6300 11ac router

Computeractive has just published my full review of the Netgear R300 11ac router. I've mentioned this briefly in my previous post about the 11ac roundup for ZDNet, but there's a bit more detail in this review. It is a very impressive router, despite its size, with plenty to keep advanced users happy. It's also one of the fastest models I've tested in 11ac mode. Its price has dropped quite a bit since it launched, and is now selling for around £170.

The Netgear Genie app in particular deserves praise - it makes managing the router much less of a chore. It also has a neat trick of turning any attached USB printer into an Airprint-compatible printer, allowing it to be used wirelessly from an iOS device.

Performance in 11ac mode at 25m was outstanding - over 100Mbps

The Netgear Genie desktop app is great

Plenty of advanced options in the settings menu

It's very bulky

This is the iOS Genie app

Find it on Amazon: