revelated's Full Review: Belkin (F5D8235-4) Wireless Router
UPDATED 2/22 FOR PSP COMPATIBILITY UPDATED 2/23 FOR GUEST WIFI ISSUE
What does my title mean?
I was running a wireless G home network with a Linksys router. I was happy with my setup but I wanted to upgrade to wireless N and maximize the throughput on my devices. For the record I have:
- Personal laptop - Work laptop - Nintendo Wii - Xbox 360 - PS3 - DirecTV HR20 - Sony PSP - Nintendo DS - Dell media server
Running on my home network. Of those devices, the 360, HR20 and media server are connected via Ethernet. I'd researched the viability of going to a Gigabit network. For those that aren't aware, basic Ethernet is capable of a maximum of 100Mbps throughput. You can imagine that might be a bit of a problem when you're streaming HD movies across your server. I also noticed a significant performance impact when attempting to use my internet connection at the same time as browsing my local network, probably due to the fact that it's not a dual band router. But it was severely annoying to me and I decided to go shopping.
I noticed this router down at BBuy, for just shy of $120. It seemed quite a bit for a router (I'm used to paying no more than half of that amount), but I noticed all of the features of the router and everything clicked into place. The router is more than a router; it's actually a hub for just about everything you can imagine. There are some notable things missing, and it does have some issues, but it's easily one of the best routers I've used in recent history (and I have used quite a few of different brands).
This Belkin supports a variety of protocols which I'll go into momentarily. I want to first focus on the negatives of the device, as I think specific negatives will end up being dealbreakers for some - so I want to expose those first, and if none of them are that critical to you, then it's just a matter of cost benefits.
The first negative is the most basic. The web interface is quite wonky, sometimes not responding to browser requests, sometimes loading a little strange (as in text all over the page), sometimes loading but looking like it's not, etc. It's just unpredictable and quite honestly I was ready to take it back due to its behavior. I stuck it out and figured out what it's problem is...I'll get to it in a later negative as it's really a separate issue. As to the page itself, there are a lot of utilities presented, most very useful, but there are also utilities that are not present that I felt should have been..not really the page's fault, and I'll get to those later.
The next negative may be a nitpick. The Linksys routers allow you to not only view DHCP clients, but also boot specific ones off or even block them at a MAC address level. The Belkin can block (or allow) MAC addresses, but once a DHCP client is connected, you can't just "delete" it from the list and kick it out. You can Deny it, but if an IP was already leased, it's stuck until the client disconnects or the router is rebooted, which may present a security issue.
There is also what I would consider a glaring issue, and it may be fixable via firmware update (which isn't yet available). The router functions in dual mode, local and WAN, so you can have internet and local network running concurrently. The problem is, you can't navigate the LAN or the router's admin page without both being active. So for example, let's say I had no network and just wanted to use this for local network connections. You have to force the router to act as an access point - but of course, that disabled the ability to use WAN as an option until it's changed back to the default. I hate to sound like a broken record, but the Linksys allowed you to still navigate the web page and use LAN resources regardless of the presence of a WAN connection. The real issue comes with configuration: I need to connect to the Belkin router and configure it before I can give it internet signal, else it will be unsecure. Can't do that if the router won't let me connect to its admin page!
Next issue is more of an annoyance. When you make changes to router settings (any router), the router generally needs to restart itself in order to make the changes effective. I'm not sure if it's the router or if it's Vista, but I never had this problem with the Linksys, so I make the assumption the Belkin is at fault somewhere...when you make such changes, and then restart the router, you'll get local connectivity back but not WAN. You have to manually repair your connection to get it to pull an IP again. I'm not sure why this happens, because again, I've never had to do that. If I didn't know better I'd swear the router was "taking too long" to talk to my computer. Of course, since you can't access WAN during this time, you also can't access the admin page to verify everything was set, nor can you access other computers on your network to see if they are working successfully. Great.
I actually praised the presence of a Guest WiFi deal...but now I need to list an issue with it. The documentation claims that the Guest is prohibited from accessing the LAN and can only access WAN resources. This is not true! I needed to get my work laptop set up to do some work on an account, so I figured I would use this opportunity to test the Guest access as I only needed Internet resources. It did show the interstitial page, and it did allow me to enter the code and proceed...but once authenticated, I was still able to ping out to local clients. I was also able to connect through to them using UNC paths, it brought up a login box just like it would have if I were connected through the normal SSID. A moderate-level hacker could easily break this. I immediately disabled this "feature".
Last but certainly not least, while it's nice that this has a USB port for connecting USB drives, I was really disappointed that a faster technology (like Firewire 800 or eSATA) was not represented. I mean this is a Gigiabit router with Wireless N yet it's using an archaic technology for the drive sharing. I guess it's for more widespread compatibility, but it's still a downer.
OK! The bad stuff is behind us. Let's get to the features and the good stuff.
As mentioned this is a Gigabit router. This applies to the Ethernet ports on the back of the device. It effectively maximizes throughput, yes...but you need to make sure that the computer is equipped with a Gigabit adapter. The standard Ethernet adapter will only max out at 100Mbps. Communications seem a lot more efficient even with standard Ethernet, but you're still not getting the most out of the connection. You can find a Netgear or other Gigabit adapter at your local store for less than $50. Once connected the router and card know to send the maximum stream through, so you should not have to do any configuration besides plugging it in and getting drivers updated.
The router supports four Ethernet devices maximum. These can be standard Ethernet, Gigabit or a combination thereof. It also supports Wireless B, G, and N...so if you have a newer laptop that supports Wireless N but other devices that use older wireless technology, you can use all of them concurrently and should not experience too much of a problem. There have been scattered reports of the Sony PSP not playing nice with the multi-spectrum setting. I did not experience this; in fact, I selected WPA (as WPA2 is not supported) TKIP, and the PSP sync'd up to the Belkin right away, which surprised me. All of my devices have sync'd up to the Belkin with minimal incident.
Unique to this router is the dual-encryption. With WPA2 you can configure a key that is then authenticated with both AES and TKIP. This means that devices that support only one or the other under WPA2 can still use the same key, without compromising your network selecting a lesser encryption algorithm. I can't tell you how much I appreciate this feature. The Wii supports AES while the PS3 supports TKIP, etc. It's nigh to infuriating, and I'm glad that this router has implemented this technology so that I don't have to deal with it.
Also unique to this router is a feature that I was on the hunt for and was told would be on expensive, high end routers: Guest Wi-Fi. Got friends who come over with their laptops? Want them to have access to your internet, but don't want them touching your local network resources? Setting up Guest Wi-Fi allows you to do it. You can even configure it like the hotels with an interstitial page that will prompt the user to enter credentials before getting access. I was very pleased that this feature was included, because on occasion I may need to give a friend access to my internet but don't want them to have access to my files. Unfortunately, you can't set caps on bandwidth utilization, either per guest or even globally for the guest account. I would have liked that, so that I can pre-allocate only a fraction of my total bandwidth to prevent "bandwidth hogging" when someone's at my place. Not a big deal, just something I would like to see in future firmware.
You can also connect a USB hard drive and access its files via a shared drive in Windows underneath the router. This is a nice feature if you just need access to the files, but USB is such a slow standard in comparison to the other standards present on the router that it's almost frustrating trying to navigate the drive's contents. There is a noticable delay when trying to access files that isn't there when the drive is connected to your computer directly, and you know it's not the router, but the delay between the slowness of USB and the speed of Wireless N and/or Gigabit, so there's nothing you can do about it. Still, it helps when you're trying to migrate files on or off of a USB drive to one of your other workstations, or use a USB drive as a central hub for file storage.
One other feature that is on other routers, but not implemented nearly as well versus the Belkin, is the ability to reserve IPs for specific MAC addresses. This way, even if the IP is dynamically assigned, you can reserve it specifically for that device's future use, so you don't run into IP conflicts on your network. As mentioned, other routers let you do this as well, but not nearly as easily. On the Belkin, you simply click the "Reserve" button next to the device, and click Apply. Two clicks and you're done, whether others have signicantly more steps to do the same function.
The router does come with a software CD which isn't necessary, but does speed up the set up process. You can install without it, but be prepared to dedicate a few hours to the cause if you choose to do so. My setup, all told, took about 6 total hours from beginning to end. Compared to the roughly 45 minutes it takes to set up the Linksys router, this disappointed me, but it wasn't the features or anything...rather, the issue with the web admin page that I mentioned earlier that caused the majority of the problem. You should probably consider just using the CD if you don't want to be bothered with it, because if you have a somewhat complex local network, you will get frustrated...guaranteed.
Don't let what I mentioned deter you, though. This is still a great router for the price, quite powerful and comparable to those you might find in companies. But it's not for beginners. If you're not sure what you're doing, find an expert. If you do know what you're doing, this is one of the best there is.
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