We thought the 1.5x1.25-inch LCD on Trendnet’s TEW-673GRU was pretty cool at first. It informs you of the router’s status, provides real-time performance numbers, displays the time and date, and more. But our enthusiasm wilted when the display became corrupted to the point of being illegible. That’s unfortunate, because there’s a lot else to like about this router.

The TEW-673GRU is a dual-band model with two USB ports to support both a printer and a portable hard drive. It finished second in terms of TCP throughput on the 2.4GHz band (taking third place on the 5GHz band), and it turned in the fastest transfer speeds as a NAS device.

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The Belkin Play Max’s claim to fame was a fat set of hardware features and a generous collection of apps that ran not on the router but on client PCs connected to the router. In relaunching the Play Max as the Play N600 HD, Belkin has kept all the hardware features but axed three of the apps (the music library tool Daily DJ, the backup utility Memory Safe, and the MP3 tagger Music Labeler).

No big loss, as far as we’re concerned; we’re far more interested in the hardware. Like its predecessor, the Play N600 HD features two wireless radios, so you can operate distinct networks on the 2.4- and 5GHz bands, plus a second guest network (on the 2.4GHz band only) that provides Internet access while isolating visitors from your LAN. You’ll also find two USB ports, so you can share both a mass storage device and a printer across your network (but not with clients on the guest network).

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We’re long-time fans of Logitech’s Wi-Life security cameras—we’ve used them to remotely monitor Maximum PC Lab North since the home was built in 2007. Now we can’t wait to retire that system and replace it with Logitech’s all-new and vastly superior Alert system.

Logitech wisely carried forward everything we dug about the old Wi-Life product line: The cameras (there are indoor and outdoor models) are equipped with customizable motion sensors, they can be programmed to record video when those sensors are activated, and the software sends alerts via email (or a message to your phone) with video clips attached.

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