Belkin’s N750 DB offers a better-than-average feature set, but the router’s performance is a mixed bag. At most of our test stations, it delivered very good performance from its 5GHz radio but mediocre throughput from its 2.4GHz radio. Belkin arrives at the N750 model number by adding the 300Mb/s theoretical throughput on its 2.4GHz radio to the 450Mb/s theoretical throughput of its 5GHz radio. This is nonsense, of course, because you can’t bond the two together to achieve throughput that even approaches 750Mb/s.
D-Link markets this single-band (2.4GHz) router as particularly well suited for gaming and media streaming, and it is endowed with very good quality-of-service features, but QoS can’t magically render the 2.4GHz frequency band any less crowded. And given our relatively pristine test environment, the best word to describe the DIR-657’s range and TCP throughput is pathetic.
Trendnet was first‑to‑market with a dual-band USB adapter capable of supporting three 150Mb/s spatial streams on both the 2.4- and 5GHz frequency bands, and now it’s first‑to‑market with a router that does the same.
Looking to replace your aging wireless router? We benchmarked three brand-new models at Maximum PC Lab North, but each one is so different from the others that this shouldn’t be considered a three-way comparison. Belkin’s N750 DB is a dual-band model promising throughput of 300Mb/s on its 2.4GHz radio and 450Mb/s on its 5GHz radio, while D-Link’s DIR-657 is a more conventional single-band (2.4GHz) model claiming throughput of 300Mb/s. And Trendnet’s EW-692GR is the first dual-band router to deliver three 150Mb/s spatial streams (450Mb/s in aggregate) on both its 2.4- and 5GHz radios.
Like the God of Thunder for which it is named, Rosewill's Thor is a mighty full-tower chassis, with phenomenal cooling capabilities and enough power to smite the competition.
There’s a hidden part of each of us that revels in destruction. That part of us sees a piece of technology billed as “rugged” and vows to destroy it. Granted, most rugged hard drive enclosures are a joke—a thin layer of rubber over a standard plastic chassis; or a thin aluminum shell, if you’re lucky, with a 2.5-inch drive held inside. They’re meant to survive a drop from a desk to the floor, or sometimes just to look cool. IoSafe, on the other hand, is serious about the “rugged” label, and the Rugged Portable SSD is among the toughest external drives you can get. Challenge accepted.
Is Creative buying into the notion of the post-PC world? The Sound Blaster Recon3D is a powerful USB audio device based on Creative’s all-new Sound Core3D chip. But you can also connect the Recon3D to an Xbox 360, PS3, or even an Intel-based Mac. Creative tells us the Sound Core3D doesn’t boast the naked power of the company’s previous-generation audio processor, but that it is extremely efficient—it draws all the power it needs from a single USB port.
Good news, everybody! The courts have upset music label EMI with a ruling that not only preserves the DMCA safe harbor, but acknowledges basic laws of physics.
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