suemccartin's Full Review: Trendware TEW-671BR Router
I got this to try to improve wireless N dual band wireless access in my house and also to try to improve the operation of a trendnet wireless G camera that I have installed on my eave outdoors.
I'd read several opinions that this router needs some work on the firmware and I have to agree. New products often have a "teething" period and that is most likely what's happening here.
My home network is a bit out of the ordinary because I have a second router for my tmobile at home voip phone line. Tmobile's instructions are to connect a port from your existing router to the wan port on the tmobile linksys modem and then plug the tmobile linksys to the computer (along with other wired cables for other devices). That didn't seem to work at all here, I suspect because of differences in the ip addresses but fortunately my motherboard has two ethernet ports so for now I have worked around that issue with this router by plugging the tmobile into the second ethernet port. I also found that no matter what this router wants to live on 192.168.10.1 and would not allow me to change the settings to my old 192.168.1.1 that my old netgear was using (which also got along with the tmobile setup a lot better).
What's in the box: router with two external antennas and four wired ports (antennas already installed on the router) power supply short ethernet cable quick setup guide setup cd
Warranty, 2 years
Setup: Connect the power to the router (short power cable if you ask me) Plug your ethernet cable coming from your modem to the wan port on the router (you may need to reboot your modem) Enter the router setup either via the setup cd or by using a browser to go to the url 192.168.10.1. Look for a new firmware and download it (in my case there was a new one on the trendnet site).
Before changing anything else load the new firmware, I don't like how trendnet uses a two part firmware, I imagine they did that because the software doesn't always need a update just the firmware code. Unlike my netgear this one doesn't auto update the firmware, I'll miss that about my netgear unit. If you don't get a update selection under firefox use internet explorer. I had that issue with my trendnet camera, the firmware update didn't appear when using firefox.
The router allows you to name the 5ghz and 2.4 ghz bands separately and to name your network. You'll note that the pages of the setup change "PAINFULLY" slowly. Hopefully this is something they'll fix in a future update. I also found that after making changes I had to hit refresh three or four times before the page would load again.
Wireless network channel selections are automatic or you can choose a channel (automatic on my netgear didn't work right).
IP address pool. I couldn't get this thing to want to live on anything except 192.168.10.1..... to whatever (but less than 250 difference). Every time I tried to change it I could no longer access the setup and there was no internet connection. I had a problem getting my buffalo ethernet converter to connect to this router until I left the ip settings alone, except for the pool settings, and set the converter to 192.168.10.150 (each device connected must have a different IP address).
Antenna orientation, I read someplace that it's best to have one pointed straight up and the other at 90 degrees. I've always found this to be true, you may also want to try rotating the unit a bit. Unlike some routers, this one doesn't come with any stands for vertical operation it's meant to lay flat period or be mounted on the wall flat.
What I think? Over all, not too bad but I do think the firmware needs quite a bit of work. Indicator lights are good, one for 2.4ghz one for 5 ghz and a light for each wired router port. One gripe is the chintzy plastic case, but it seems like everyone is doing that these days...just makes it feel and look cheap if you ask me. Another gripe is the "painfully slow" change of the setup screens inside the router setup using i.e. or firefox and the annoying tendancy to need to hit refresh to get another screen after an update.
You do need a bit of knowledge to make this work in an established network. The external antennas are a plus and I'll be looking into better ones, trendnet seems to be good about providing better antennas for their products. I haven't yet tried connecting my trendnet camera to this but I'm hoping it works better than it did with the netgear. Still having issues in the bedroom with 5 ghz but 2.4 ghz works very well and is, according to the buffalo converter setup connecting at the full 300 mbps it's capable of. This unit is supposedly mimo (which is supposedly a faster more efficient connection, thus the 300mbps this thing is capable of) and the supposedly concurrent 5 ghz radio (means the unit doesn't switch back and forth, both radios always working) should mean better connections for the devices that can use it even though something else is using the 2.4 ghz radio.
After rebates and coupons eighty bucks wasn't bad for this but I hope they fix the firmware soon.
update: Started the battle with the wireless camera. The camera wants to live on a completely different subnet by default. When connected via wire to this router the setup software can see it but so far I cannot enter the camera setup either via the camera software or web browser, I suspect I need to forward a port or something. This time all the hardware is trendnet, if I can't figure it out myself they can't use the excuse that it's not their router anymore like they did the last time. Aggravating..that's all I can say.
update: Awhile ago my home network (a bedroom media server and my desktop...never added the laptops but I may soon) stopped being able to communicate, one day it worked next day it didn't I attributed the problem to a ms$ update that broke something. After changing to this router and the buffalo converter for the bedroom system and the xbox I decided to try fiddling with the network again; bang had to do nothing it all works now. Even before one box could see the desktop or vise versa but never could they both see one another. It's all working now, both machines can detect the other without cables. I suspect it may be something to do with NAT, can't turn it off on this router or it doesn't work (more fixes in future firmware). Xbox supposed to be a little picky about NAT but so far it works with the live service; haven't tried a online game yet but I don't do that a lot anyhow so not too worried if it doesn't work. Happy the network is working again now it's a lot easier to move big files back and forth from each hard drive and the fast G connection means large files take a lot less time to transfer. Just looked again for firmware update, latest on the site still 9-28-09.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 80.00 Driver Availability: Other
TRENDnet - TEW-671BR Dual Band Wireless N Router - 4 x 10/100Base-TX LAN, 1 x 10/100Base-TX WAN - IEEE 802.11n (draft) - 300MbpsMore at CompSource Inc.
The 300Mbps Concurrent Dual Band Wireless N Router provides wireless n speed, coverage and reliability with up to 12x the speed and 4x the coverage of...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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