Trendnet Easy-N-Upgrader TEW-637AP

Michael Brown — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 19:39:31 -0500

If you can’t afford to upgrade your network to 802.11n Draft N 2.0, you might consider purchasing Trendnet’s Easy-N-Upgrader TEW-637AP. Instead of throwing your existing router in the trash, plug it into the Easy-N-Upgrader access point to gain many of the benefits of a Draft N router for about half the price.

True dual-band routers operate one radio on the 2.4GHz band and the other on the 5GHz band—the ones we’ve tested have built-in gigabit switches. Trendnet’s device, however, uses only the 2.4GHz band—the same one your older Wi-Fi router most likely uses—and since it’s just an access point, it doesn’t have a switch at all.

And while you could operate both access points at the same time—in fact, at no point does Trendnet’s installation wizard advise you to turn off the radio inside your router—that leaves both devices competing for the same bandwidth.

You should ignore the installation wizard altogether in favor of the device’s web-based user interface. Trendnet’s default configuration leaves the router operating in mixed 802.11b/g/n mode with channel bonding turned off. In that scenario, with the radio on our Asus WL700gE 802.11g also on, the Trendnet delivered TCP throughput of just 29.3Mb/s at close range. When we turned off the Asus’s access point and tweaked the Easy-N to run in 802.11n-only mode with channel bonding activated, throughput jumped to 81.7Mb/s.

The Trendnet’s throughput was significantly faster than our 802.11g access point’s inside the house. Its outdoor range, though, was less impressive: Our notebook couldn’t maintain a connection to it in either of our exterior locations.

Trendnet Wireless N Gigabit (TEW-633GR)

Michael Brown — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 03:17:35 -0600

Belkin’s N1 Vision and Trendnet’s Wireless N Gigabit are among the first routers to be benchmarked in our new real-world test environment: a 2,800 square-foot foot home in rural Northern California (call it Maximum PC Lab North). You’ll find all the details, including photographs, at Mike's blog.

If you’ve already installed a Wi-Fi router, you don’t need the vendor’s installation software to help you through the process. So we weren’t surprised that Trendnet didn’t develop anything for its TEW-633GR 802.11n Draft 2.0 product, relying instead on Pure Networks’ Network Magic.

But we feel obligated to evaluate each company’s installation routine, and we were torqued to find that Trendnet’s resulted in the free, basic version of Network Magic in residence on our system. We’ve recommended Network Magic in the context of an expert installing it on other people’s rigs to avoid becoming the default tech-support monkey for friends and family, but it’s not an app power users will need on their own machines. We’re not saying that Network Magic installed itself surreptitiously, but it gives no indication of what it is about to do until it’s already done it—and that’s bad etiquette.

We weren’t very impressed with Trendnet’s hardware, either. As you can see from the benchmark chart, the router delivered tremendous wireless TCP throughput without encryption, but rates fell through the floor when we enabled WPA Personal security with an AES cipher. The router couldn’t reach the client in the second of our outdoor tests with or without security enabled.

The TEW-633GR does have a strong feature set, including push-button WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup), a four-port Gigabit switch, and Ubicom’s StreamEngine quality-of-service technology. But those attributes are of little value without fast wireless throughput.

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Trendnet Easy-N-Upgrader TEW-637AP

Trendnet Wireless N Gigabit (TEW-633GR)