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DLink Wireless N Router

61

Fair

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5 User Reviews | add yours »

Pros
Very good routing features
WPA-Enterprise support in a budget product
Cons
Poor performance at close range and long range
No gigabit ethernet

$45.99 - $134.95
From 32 Merchants

User Reviews for DLink Wireless N Router

Reviewed by: rawbun

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: Good Looks, Cheap price, Reasonable radio range

Weaknesses: No 5GHZ Radio

Overall Evaluation: First the retailer apparently sold me a return unit, so I wonder why it had been returned. It was missing the ethernet cable, and came with an extra phone cord from some other product. This is my fourth wireless router, and I felt I had plenty of experience configuring these things, but there are so many new features, I was initially overwhelmed. After a few minutes I was able to determine what features I was interested in and found the install reasonabaly easy. I did not even need the CD. Now I must mention that this is a "Draft-N" router, which means that if you are not buying the client adapter from the same manufacturer, all bets are off. Here is what my experience was: I was able to connect with my Lenovo Laptop to connect at 300Mbs with no difficulty. However in an hour or so it would disconnect for some reason, and could not re-connect. Sometimes I could get it to re-connect by releasing the client IP and renewing the connection to the router, and sometimes I needed to re-boot the client to re-connect. I still consider this to be an issue with the Atheros Draft-N chipset in the Lenovo, but have tried the latest drivers... without being able to fix this. I have researched the issue on the internet, and have determined that there may be an issue in noisy urban areas with the early Draft-N routers that use only the 2.4Ghz radios. With Bluetooth, A cordless phone system and a microwave nearby, the chances of keeping a high speed connection going long term is apparently poor. Everything I read indicated that this would be likely fixed in the Draft-N groups latest decision to use a 5Ghz radio, which has a more limited number of channels, but good bandwidth, and few commercial products using this frequency range. Oh yes here is a good place to mention that there was never an issue re-connecting when a connection was lost if I did not enable wireless security (I had switched from WEP to WPA2 when switching to Draft-N) I contacted Dlink customer support, and gave them the best description of my problems. Their answer was to use another client system (Preferably using their host adapter) and report back the results. I have no other system to test this on and did not want to spend more for the investigation, so I just reverted back to 802.11G mode, and have had no problems. I am still using WPA2, and it works fine in G mode, but still needs to re-connect from time to time when I am assuming noise causes a connection to be lost. I have had this issue with all routers I have tried. There is usually 6 or more in range when I view wireless networks in my operating area. The router, and radio seem to be very stable. I have not had to re-boot them unless I have made changes that required it. In Summary I would rate the product well, but I think it is best to forget 802.11N until it is released. I kind of felt like I spent money for nothing as I already had a working 802.11G router. Fortunately for me I was able to sell the old one to a friend in need, which reduced the amount of wasted money.
Reviewed by: datbates

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: Speed, Price

Weaknesses: Ease of configuration, compatibility, configuration performance

Overall Evaluation: This is an ok router once you install the firmware update. When I opened the box, it had an installation CD and very little info. There was also tape over the ethernet connections saying to use the CD. The CD wizard is not Mac compatible (even though the box claims the router is), and an experienced network, and software engineer like myself should not need one to configure a router. So I pulled off the confusing tape and plugged in my new Mac (10.5) laptop, figured out the router address, and brought up the ugly wizard. Everything I tried to configure seemed to have problems. I had already read about the firmware update, so I went and found it online. I could not install it with Safari or Firefox. It failed every time. I had to pull out my old windows xp box and use internet explorer to actually get the firmware installed. Once I had gotten that set up, I finished the configuration with my windows box and it worked ok. Every section of the config you make changes to forces a restart the router, and it takes an embarrassingly long time to come back up. Also it kept auto choosing a channel which seemed to cause some of my computers trouble in reconnecting. I configured it to stick to 7, and the problems seemed to go away. The wizard was pretty lame and confusing even for an experienced tech support guy, but I got through it. I can't see there is any difference between Virtual Server and Port Forwarding. Why be confusing? However the router has everything you would expect, and some nice short cuts when setting up port forwarding and reserved ips that I had not seen before. But, the wizard is SO ugly, industrial, buggy, incompatible, and tedious compared to my previous wonderful Net Gear wizard. It seems to work though. I guess I'll keep it until wireless Z comes along. Summing up: tolerable router if strapped for cash, but if you can spend $40 more you can get one from Net Gear or Linksys that hopefully has a better, more compatible wizard and out of box quality.
Reviewed by: silviun

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: fast, easy to install, very good range

Weaknesses: none so far

Overall Evaluation: I replaced my old 108 Mbps USRobotics router with this one. The range for a good connection is considerably larger, and the connection is rock stable. Very easy to install, can be installed on a wall with the included kit. The firmware is easy to upgrade. It accepts WAP, WEP and WAP2 encryption,which should help you if you have older devices. For the price ($45) is a fantastic buy, much cheaper than other n-Routers
Reviewed by: resalerail

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: Low price point for any N router. Easy setup. Esthetically pleasing product.

Weaknesses: WPA doesn't work on the N-ONLY setting.

Overall Evaluation: For the price, this router delivers a great bang for the buck. This router has excellent signal strength and speed. Setting up this router is quick and easy. This will be an easy router for a total novice user to connect in their home. I have not had to power down this router at all. This router effectively manages 4 PCs in my house. I would recommend this router to anyone on a budget who wants to upgrade to wireless N capabilities.
Reviewed by: lken14

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: Bought ours as a replacement several months ago and worked at first then after hours and days of support calls nothing and that has been months ago. Looking to purchase another model.

Weaknesses: setup and management of router sucks

Overall Evaluation: too difficult to manage. worked at first but after a few months could not use the wireless feature. hard wire is fine. had to spend numerous hours and on phone with customer service and they could not figure out any problems other than interference although our old linksys worked fine for years until is could not access and we had changed channels, etc, and we had not done anything different to our equipment in our home. So here we go searching for some way to acess via wireless vs just wired connections. Get tired of walking around with wires. Have hard wired desktops but want wireless laptops. wired laptop defeats the purpose of wireless router.

D-Link Wireless N Router DIR-615 vB2 Review

by Becky Waring, PC World

- The D-Link Wireless N Router DIR-615 is among the least-expensive draft-n routers on the market and has a great feature set. Un?fortunately it performed poorly on our speed and range tests.

Read Complete Review »

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