Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A steal with the rebate!, June 16, 2005
Update - Dec. 30, 2005: I liked how well this router worked at my home that I bought a second one to install at my mother-in-laws over the holidays. As with my first unit, it installed in minutes, was operational immediately and the only 'set-up' needed was to configure some basic encription which took another couple of minutes.
Perhaps there are more robustly featured routers out there, but what I want is ease, speed and basic security. And this thing delivers all three at an excellent price pont!
Pros:
a) Installed smoothly, replacing an older SMC 802.11b router. Everything was operational within 30 minutes, including three wireless PCs (including my new Hawking USB device on one), a wireless printer (see note below, though) and a secondary Linksys access point.
b) Connections on my two 802.11g-enabled PCs immediately linked at the higher speeds. And you can tell the difference!
c) Surprisingly, my signal strength in the remote office jumped significantly, increasing from ~40-60% levels to 90+% levels. I was not expecting this type of improvement because 802.11g is not supposed to go further, just faster. And this unit only has one antenna vs. two on my older SMC so I was actually concerned that I might even see poorer signal strength.
Needless to say, I am very pleased as my network is faster and covers a greater distance than before!
Cons:
a) Not a real con, but if you must have your router be a printer server as well, this does not have that function built in. Not a big deal for most home applications - just hook up your printer to a PC and slave it from there. Or, use a wireless printer like I do (highly recommended HP 7410) and eliminate the wires altogether!
Installation notes - While everything easily installed an configured as noted above, if you have a second access point or a wireless printer, keep the following in mind:
a) Your access point needs to be reconfigured to a new IP that matches the new router's address range. If you don't, your second access point does nothing for you! Easy to do but easy to forget!
b) Okay, this one stumped me for a while! I had my wireless printer configured to the new network in less than a minute. Everything was `visible' on the network. The PCs all `saw' the printer. But nothing printed! Hmmm ... nothing in the router or printer manuals. No help from Windows XP. Guess not too many people have wireless printers and change their wireless router! The problem isn't the printer, the router or the PC, really. It is just that each PC's printer port is configured to `point' to an old IP address from your prior router and nothing updates this automatically for you. Simple, really. Just open your printer properties and `add' a new printer port (the wizard will find the new IP address for you) and everything once again works flawlessly. This is not an issue for 99% of you who have wired printers, but for anyone with a wireless printer (and I love mine!), keep this in mind!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not all features enabled at this time!, August 13, 2005
This product is very economical when purchased with a rebate, yet, the WDS function only works with WEP or (worse yet) no encryption! The device does not work with WDS and WPA enabled at the same time. SMC advised that it "MIGHT" be fixed in a future firmware update. I've been waiting 5 months for a firmware update, to no avail. Be sure to verify the functionality that you need for your net is actually operating on this device.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
So far so good..., January 6, 2006
I had experience with earlier SMC Barricade products that all prevented my VPN connections to work, so I couldn't recommend them. I tried this one with the terrific rebates of late just to play with it, and I'm now using it as my primary router!
This router is easy to configure and has been working extremely well. I only played with wireless distances a little bit, and they seem reasonable for a residence. I live in an apartment, so I can only roam so far. I couldn't go too far down the hall before I lost signal, but I think that's due to my cheap PCMCIA card in the laptop I was playing with.
I played with WEP and WPA - both worked fine.
One very cool feature that I've found with more recent routers - they seem to be "plug and play" with the Vonage IP service adapters. I had an old Netgear router and I had to open up the VOIP port numbers for the VOIP adapter. This SMC router (and the Motorola WR850G) don't require any ports to be set up - they seem to be VOIP "aware".
One other reason why this is my primary router now. I had a Motorola WR850G as my main router, but I upgraded it. VPN had some issues, and it occasionally would stop routing and I'd have to cycle the power. I did successfully downgrade the firmware and it worked fine again, but I'm staying with this one... at least for now!
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