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02-14-08
Duration of ownership:
Strengths: has 4 ports
Weaknesses:doesn't work for many printers, doesn't support my mfc's, doesn't work for Leopard, there is no installation utility, no installation guide for Mac or for Vista. Poor quality.
Overall Evaluation: This is a poorly designed product. Maybe some of the positive reviews were for XP, but for Vista or Mac, the product quality is one of the worst ever. 1. Make sure you check the compatibility list for your printer. My Brother MFC-8640D and Epson multi-function machines can only SOME TIMES work, and for printing only. Printing is also slow. Scanning is out of question. don't even dream about the faxing function. 2. Installation guide for Vista is a joke. Nothing works as the installation guide says. The setup process requires you to guess everything from scratch every step of the way, and have intimate knowledge with wifi routers. I switched to a Netgear 2 port print server, the process was much more friendly and logical, and the Netgear worked as advertised for Windows. 3. For MacBook Pro with Max OSX / Leopard, you are out of luck. I struggled for hours, tried every posting on the web: used the LPD, set the correct IP address, and found the driver, or use the Generic Postscript driver, the best I could get to is: 80% spooling. To be fair, the Netgear does not work for Mac either. 4. Tech support is out of India somewhere. They are patient and friendly, but it was hard to communicate. Because there is no installation CD, everything has to be figured out on your own. This is not a product for the faint hearted. I am reasonably familiar with all the wireless setup technical issues, but I was still challenged by it until the tech support guys were on the phone. I am returning it. One of the worst products I ever experienced. The only other product I bought and left in the garage to collect dust is also a D-Link, an 802.11n router.
11-26-07
Duration of ownership: 29 Days
Strengths: None. Too lightweight to make a good anchor or doorstop.Plastic casing cracked when hit with hammer, thrown at brick wall.
Weaknesses:Difficult to configure encryption to work with wireless network. Many printers incompatible. Access of printer over wireless network difficult/impossible to get working.
Overall Evaluation: I spent a total of 13 hours on the phone with D-Link customer support trying to resolve technical issues and get this device working with my basic home wireless network. I have worked in the computer field for more than 15 years and have never encountered a product as buggy nor a customer support line as bad as what I encountered working with this D-Link product. Device would get on the network when connected via cable. After 9 hours on phone with tech support finally transferred to one competent/experienced person who explained that documentation about encryption settings is incorrect. Additional 4 hours spent w/ customer support with 'resolution' being that my printer was not supported and their final policy is that I am stuck with their product which will not work with my recent-vintage Canon printer. Never even tried connecting a scanner since basic print server function never worked properly.Only giving this item one star because I can't give it a lower rating.
10-15-07
Duration of ownership:
Strengths: 4 USB ports, 1 ethernet which can be used as a wireless bridge. Uses standard LPD/LPR system which means it will work with almost ANYTHING that prints.
Weaknesses:Setup instruction is sparse and relys on wizards that work only for windoze
Overall Evaluation: I needed 2 thing from this product1) a way to connect my 2 printers Epson R300 (supported) and my HP1200 (not supported)2 a bridge to connect my web cam to use as a baby monitor.In both respects it worked FLAWLESSLY!As stated above the HP1200 technically is not supported but you will find even if you google it that many other report that it happily works with printers not on the list. This is because of the old LPD/LPR system that simply passes the info to the printer without interpreting it.I have included here a mini How To for non windows CUPS based systems.1) Set up your print server and when its properly on the network goto its homepage.2) You will see all printers and their corresponding queues. Take note of the queues to copy&paste later. On your MAC or Linux system the following process is the same.3) open a browser to the CUPs administration tool at http://localhost:631(NOTE you will need the root password)4) Depending on cups version (older) navigate to printers dialog and click add printer (newer) navigate to Administration then to add printer.5) Fill in the Name, Location and Description Click continue.6) In the Device section drop down and Choose the LPD/LPR Host or Printer7) Enter lpd://(ip of print server goes here)/(Queue name)EG if your print server IP is 192.168.1.3 and the printer queue name is HPlaserjet1200 then enter lpd://192.168.1.3/HPlaserjet1200. I like to copy & paste the queue right out of the print servers home page.8) Select proper driver and Voila! You're Finished! ITs that easy and ALL through the web interface. Which is identical across all platforms that use CUPs.
09-25-07
Duration of ownership: 3 Months
Strengths: Cheap, easy to configure, share upto 4 printers
Weaknesses:Multi function capability limited to very few AIOs, poor DLink customer support
Overall Evaluation: Got this MF WPS from officedepot.com for a good price of about $60+taxes. Took me about 90mins to setup and configure it with my Canon MF 4150 and wireless laptop + wired desktop. Initially was frustrating as the quick setup guide isnt really great, but then as I figured out by trial and error things became clear. Overall a decent WPS but just for printing.MF 4150 scanner not compatible with WPS and technical support is horrible, after waiting for 2 months they say it wouldnt work. Maybe they just wanted to see to it that my return time expires and that I am stuck with the product. If you have multi-function printer, DLINK shldnt be your choice.
04-27-07
Duration of ownership: 1 Days
Strengths: Easy to set up, WPA2, able to print and scan from all computers on the network
Weaknesses:DHCP not enabled by default, must use built-in program for scanning, feels "cheap"
Overall Evaluation: I got this device up and running in about 20-30 minutes. It probably could have been done much faster had I known some of the information that I'm going to give in this review. For starters, go to DLink.com and download the most recent firmware update. The first thing you should do is update the firmware because if you do it later, then you have to re-do your settings over again. DHCP is disabled when the unit is first taken out of then box. It's default IP address is 192.168.0.10. My network runs on a 10.10.10.* range. I thought this might give me problems but it was not as bad as I expected. The Quick Guide walks you through how to change your IP address if you're not running on the 192.168.0.* range (which most routers use by default). The unit must be initially set up via a wired connection (a LAN cable is included). I plugged the DPR-1260 in to my DLink DIR-655 router, not sure if the difference in IP addresses would matter. I also changed my desktop's IP address to 192.168.0.20, 255.255.255.0 for subnet and left the gateway blank per the Quick Guide's instruction. (I'd like to add that my desktop is connected via a wireless connection.) I started my web browser and pointed it to 192.168.0.10 and I received the DPR-1260's "homepage". The first thing I went to was Setup > Administration > Firmware and uploaded the newest firmware. The unit asks for a password which by default is blank. At this point, I stopped using the Quick Guide figuring I could finish it by myself. This is where the long installation time kicked in. I changed the unit's IP address to reflect my network and changed my desktop back to DHCP (it has a reserved IP address that gets issued based on MAC address). For some reason, the setting did not get saved even though I clicked save. The unit asked to reboot but said you can continue making changes and then reboot when ready. I recommend rebooting with each major change. I had to change my desktop back to 192.168.0.20 and ensure the static IP address was set and then change back to DHCP... Another delay I ran in to was with the wireless encryption. I thought I remembered the encryption key but I was wrong. A look at my router's log showed that it had banned the DPR-1260 because of too many incorrect attempts. I simply changed my encryption key to the one that I usually use and also changed to WPA/WPA2 split setting since I was just using WPA before. Once I change the encryption key for the desktop, I was able to log in to the DPR-1260 and change the wireless settings which was still wired. TIP: When you attempt to connect to the network, the unit will ask to reboot. When you click the reboot button, r
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