MAXIMUMPC NOVEMBER 2007
We’ve seen at least three waves of Wi-Fi routers and adapters
based on drafts of the IEEE 802.11n standard, but to date, no one’s
shipped an A/V streamer. When you consider how much bandwidth
high-defi nition video and surround-sound audio consume, you’d
think the market would be fl ush with such products.
In fact, D-Link’s DSM-750 MediaLounge Wireless Media Player is
the only such device we’ve heard any inkling of. Announced at CES
back in January, the DSM-750 promises to stream high-defi nition
H.264 and VC-1 video streams, music, and digital photos from a PC
connected to an 802.11n router.
The DSM-750 will feature an HDMI connector along with compo-
nent, composite, and (we suspect) S-video connections. Music (in
MP3 and WMA format) and other audio that doesn’t stream over theHDMI connection can be output in either analog form or digital. USB
2.0 and Fast Ethernet ports round out the confi guration. D-Link has
not announced pricing or availability for this product.
We suspect streaming high-def won’t become a big need until
the consumer-electronics industry ends the Blu-ray/HD DVD stan-
dards war. In the meantime, you don’t need the fat pipe that an
802.11n network provides to stream standard-defi nition video. You
might benefi t if your network is consistently saturated by other traf-
fi c. 802.11n is defi nitely overkill for streaming music; in fact, our
current favorite audio streamer—the Sonos Digital Music System—
doesn’t rely on your Wi-Fi network at all. It creates its own based
on a proprietary fl avor of 802.11g. Other excellent music streamers,
such as Logitech’s Squeezebox, run just fi ne on an 802.11g network.MEDIA STREAMERS: THE MISSING LINK
The 802.11n standard provides awesome range and plenty of bandwidth, so where are the A/V streamers?
Belkin’s N1 router looks gorgeous, and
the company has put a lot of thought
into making it easy for greenhorns to
build a home network, but the N1 was
the slowest in this fi eld and it delivered
very poor range.
This is the router to buy for your
technophobe friends or relatives if you
can’t be there to set it up. Belkin’s
instructions start on the outside of
the box: There’s a big “Open Here”
label right on top. The fi rst thing you
see when you follow that command is
an oversized, illustrated quick instal-
lation guide. A series of large LED-
backlit icons on the router light up insequence, providing
comforting visual
reassurance that each
step in the process
has been successfully
completed.
Despite all this
hand-holding, how-
ever, the installation
routine doesn’t prompt
the user to establish
any type of wireless
security. Perhaps
Belkin fi gured that the
user will become curi-
ous as to why the rout-
er’s “security” LED isn’t lit up and then
delve into the digital user manual to fi nd
out. One thing’s for sure: The router’s
built-in help is absolutely useless in this
regard, referring to features that aren’t
built into the device.
We’re also disappointed with the
N1’s paltry selection of operating
modes: You can run the router in mixed
mode (802.11b/g/n) only. You can set
20MHz/40MHz channel bonding to
auto, on (40MHz only), or off (20MHz
only)—and that’s it. There are no QoS
provisions, either.
At close range, the Belkin N1 was
signifi cantly slower than three of the
fi ve routers we reviewed. What’s worse,we couldn’t connect to it at all in our
longer-range tests. We suspect that the
N1 would perform better in a more typi-
cal residential environment, but then so
would the rest of the fi eld. (See page 70
for benchmark details.)
The competition would do well to fol-
low Belkin’s lead in making wireless net-
works easier to set up and monitor, but
Belkin needs to make this router more
robust. And how about upgrading that
chintzy Fast Ethernet switch to Gigabit
while you’re at it?
The N1’s firmware interface is as
user-hostile as its installation wiz-
ard is user-friendly.Beauty is literally only skin deep on Belkin’s N1 rout-
er—a little coarse language is all it takes to scratch
its glossy surface.4
BELKIN N1 (F5D8231-4)
$110, http://www.belkin.comBELKIN N1 (F5D8231-4)
Slick, sexy, and slow as tar