D-Link DIR-655 Extreme-N Gigabit Wireless Router
by D-Link Systems, Inc.
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Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: D-Link Systems, Inc.Audio: English (Original Language); French (Original Language)
Format: CD
Model: DIR-655
Product features:
- Delivers up to 14x faster speeds* and 6x farther range* than 802.11g means greater coverage for your entire home or office
- Ideal for streaming HD video or streaming multiple applications simultaneously
- Intelligent QoS technology prioritizes both wired and wireless Internet traffic to enable enhanced gaming and phone calling (VoIP) experience
- Gigabit Ports for Incredible Wired Network Speeds
- Dual active firewall protection (SPI & NAT) helps block malicious attacks on networks from the Internet.
- Windows Live OneCare 2.0 (Up to 3 Users)
- Norton Antivirus 2010 1-User [OLD VERSION]
- Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Standard [OLD VERSION]
- Nero 8 Ultra Edition [OLD VERSION]
- Roxio Creator 2010 [OLD VERSION]
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of D-Link DIR-655 Extreme-N Gigabit Wireless Router
Customer Review: Best router ever . . .PERIOD
Summary: 5 Stars
Tested with the following network:
Comcast Cable Internet
Motorola SB 5100 (Cable Modem)
D-Link DIR-655 (Router)
D-Link RangeBooster N DWA-642 (Adaptor)
IBM Thinkpad (Laptop)
Gateway PC (Personal Computer)
Dish Network DVR (Digital Video Recorder)
HP Media Vault MV2020 (Network Attached Storage)
HP Officejet 7310 All-in-One (All-in-One Printer)
Sony Playstation 3 (Gaming Console)
Netgear 85 Mbps Powerline 4-Port Ethernet Adapter (Ethernet Adapter)
PROS:
1. Incredibly fast (fastest router available)
2. Good range
3. Wireless/Wireline (4 ethernet ports)
4. 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11n compatible
5. Great security features
6. Great customer support
7. Stable
8. Constant firmware updates keep hardware up-to-date
9. Easy to setup
10. Comes with user friendly Network Magic software
11. Inexpensive for performance (sells well below retail price)
CONS:
1. Looks ugly and cheap
2. Interferes with 2.4Ghz cordless phones
3. Some people have had poor experiences with D-Link's customer service.
4. People using VoIP have had problems with this router.
5. D-Link has a poor reputation.
Do not underestimate the importance of a good router. With broadband Internet becoming more readily available, faster, and cheaper, products are increasingly being designed to tap into this infrastructure to utilize both the Internet and your network. No longer are PCs and laptops the only devices connecting to the Internet. Now you have DVRs (e.g., video on demand, updating, etc.), phones (e.g., VoIP, video phones, etc.), media players, print servers, gaming consoles (e.g., PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, etc. not only accessing the Internet for gaming and content, but acting as UPnP AV media servers), storage (e.g., network attached storage, Ethernet external hard drives, etc.), etc. What is more is the interoperability of such products (see, e.g., UPnP - an industry initiative designed to enable simple and robust connectivity among consumer electronics, intelligent appliances and mobile devices from many different vendors). In sum, your router is going to be the gateway for all this new technology, and thus, it is VITAL for your router to be stable, reliable, compatible, and fast.
SPEED
In terms of speed, 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g are old news. The newest standard that is going to be released soon is 802.11n, which is going to be significantly faster and have significantly longer range than previous standards. Most likely, your computer or laptop adaptor is not new enough to utilize the draft N standard. Thus (this is extremely important), you must purchase the appropriate adaptor to match your draft N router. For my laptop, I chose the D-Link RangeBooster N DWA-642 notebook card. They also make a USB adaptor, but I did not want to plug up one of my USB slots, especially when I use none of my notebook card slots. Although the N standard is still in "draft" stage, many hardware vendors already sell "pre-N" or "Draft-N" hardware, based on the most recent draft. These vendors anticipate the final version will not be significantly different from the draft, and in a bid to get the early mover advantage, are pushing ahead with the technology. Many of these products have failed to perform to the hype of the N standard. Reviewers have suggested waiting on buying such routers, especially since many of them are expensive, until 802.11n is released. I disagree with their recommendation, because:
1. Many of the reviews are obsolete given driver and firmware updates. The D-Link DIR-655 is a Draft 2.0-compliant gear, which means that it is guaranteed to be fully compatible with the final 802.11n standard (it also, of course, is compatible with 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g standards). You do not have to worry about buying this router and then having to buy another "true 802.11n standard" router in the future. D-Link has been excellent in providing firmware updates so that your hardware does not go obsolete. In fact, as of November 2007, there have been 6 updates so far, and there are certainly going to be many more as the 802.11n standard is released (see http://www.dlink.com/products/support.asp?pid=530&sec=0#firmware).
and 2. The D-Link DIR-655 is extremely fast (much faster than 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g standard routers) and has been consistently tested to be easily the fastest draft N router available (see, e.g., http://reviews.cnet.com/routers/d-link-dir-655/4505-3319_7-32145084.html?tag=prod.txt.1; http://www.dlink.com/products/DIR-655/snb-charts.asp#wan).
2a. Internet performance
The DIR-655 is rated at 300Mb/s, which is faster than any available Internet connection available. Accordingly, the infrastructure of your Internet connection is always going to be the ceiling when it comes to performance until it is rated above 300Mb/s. In other words, the D-Link DIR-655 cannot improve performance above what your Internet line (e.g., cable or DSL) and modem can offer. For example, if your Cable Internet is rated at 6 MB/s, there is nothing the DIR-655 can do to increase that transfer rate, because the cable infrastructure itself is the bottleneck. While the router may not increase your download/upload speeds, despite routers typically being rated higher than your Internet connection, it may decrease it. This is more of a risk when connecting to the Internet wirelessly instead of through an ethernet cable, because the packets of data are slowed down by bouncing off of walls, getting interference from other devices, etc. As a result, to evaluate the performance of the DIR-655, I connected my laptop directly to the modem with an ethernet cable and compared that speed to: (1)DIR-655 Wireless connection ; and (2) DIR-655 ethernet cable connection. The DIR-655 performed very well, because I did not notice any drop in performance when using the router.
and 2b. Network performance
The DIR-655 theoretical 300Mb/s speed is more significant when it comes transferring data over your network. Thus, if you are planning on sharing or streaming media (e.g., pictures, music, and videos) over your network, especially high-definition content, you will utilize its performance. Thus far, I have successfully wirelessly streamed pictures, music, and avi and flash videos from an external hard drive connected to my laptop to my Playstation 3 (acting as a UPnP AV media server). I have not streamed DivX video files yet, because the Playstation 3 does not support such format and I am too lazy to convert the format to MPEG-4, which it does recognize. TVersity is a service that transcodes DivX allowing it to be played on the PS3, but Sony announced that it will release a firmware update supporting DivX soon, so I will just wait until then. I also have a HP Media Vault, which also acts as a UPnP AV media server. I set it up on the network no problem, but have not had time to transfer any content to it to stream. So far, so good, but I will update accordingly.
SECURITY
The D-Link DIR-655 has the most up-to-date and powerful security tools. This is especially important since the range of this router creates a wireless cloud that makes it easy for your wireless network to be picked up by intruders. For encryption, the DIR-655 offers WEP (an obsolete standard), WPA-Personal, and WPA-Enterprise. It also, of course, offers an 8 to 63 character alphanumeric pass-phrase for your network. You could also hide your network to make it difficult for intruders to find your network. In addition, you can also put a network lock on your network so that only devises you approve could use your connection.
SETUP
You can setup you router by typing http://192.168.0.1/ into your web browser. D-link also provides Network Magic software (which, of course, is fully compatible with the D-Link DIR-655) to help monitor, troubleshoot, and tweak your connection. Network Magic comes with a very useful flowchart mapping out all the devices in your network with valuable information (e.g., its IP address, subnet mask, MAC address, etc.) including possible intruders that you can boot off your network. It also makes it easy to tweak the D-Link DIR-655's up to date and powerful wireless connection security options such as network lock, hiding the network name, and enabling encryption. Although the Network Magic software is a free one month trial version, you can still use it when the trial expires.
SUPPORT
When setting up a sophisticated network with products using cutting edge new technology, you are undoubtedly going to run into some problems. This is why good customer support for a router is very important, more so than other products. I have read people's complaints about D-Link's poor customer service with other devices. In fact, when doing my research about which router to purchase, many have told me to avoid D-Link as a company due to its reputation of making inferior products and offering poor customer service. However, given good customer feedback for D-Link's DIR-655 specifically and how well it out performed its competitors in objective tests, I decided to give the DIR-655 a try. I am very happy I took the risk.
With regards to D-Link's customer service, the only D-Link device I have is the DIR-655, so I can only comment on my personal experience. I have contacted customer support about five times. One of the calls was regarding a "limited or no connectivity" message I was receiving (see below). The other four times the call was regarding help with setting up and maximizing my home network, as opposed to a problem with the DIR-655 directly. Every time I called, to my surprise, I got first-rate support and my problem was solved and (more importantly) never returned. In addition, their router technical support department had no heavy foreign accents, were willing to help, was conducted over a high quality phone line (loud, no hisses, no cracks, no pops, etc.), and, most importantly, the troubleshooting techniques were specific to my problem as opposed to unhelpful general comments read off a computer screen. It is very frustrating when technical support cannot solve your problem after leading you through troubleshooting techniques that you tried before your called and techniques that you are certain will not solve the problem. It was very refreshing to not deal with such customer service. Honestly, it is some of the best customer support from a technology company I have experienced and it puts companies such as Belkin to shame (I had an absolute nightmare experience with their support).
STABILITY
In the past I've owned two Linksys routers and a Dell router. All three routers required me to reset the routers from time to time to cure problems such as slow Internet speeds, no Internet connection, etc. When I first setup the DIR-655, I had no problems with it dropping a connection. Then, for some reason, the Internet connection kept dropping with a "limited or no connectivity" error message. This happened for a few days, resetting the router by unplugging the router did not help, so I called D-Link technical support. D-Link made me reset the router by pushing the little reset button in the back with a paperclip (as opposed to merely unplugging it) and made me change a few advanced setting under its control panel. I got the impression that they knew what they were doing, because the setting they made me change were not simple settings and it fixed my problem. They told me that if that did not fix the problem they would send me a new router. This was months ago, and not only did it fix the problem, but I haven't had to reset my router ever since. The router has been nothing but stable.
INTERFERENCE
The D-Link DIR-655, and many other routers as well, use a 2.4Ghz band. Thus, it will interfere with products that utilize the 2.4Ghz band (the most common example would be a 2.4Ghz band cordless phone), resulting in you losing your wireless internet connection. You can still, however, use the router through a wired line when the cordless phone is in use. I suggest simply upgrading your phone to a DECT 6.0 standard cordless phone, which does not interfere with the router.
APPEARANCE
One flaw the D-Link DIR-655 has is that it is ugly and looks cheap. You take one look at the router and say to yourself, this thing is the best router out there? In addition, it is difficult to discern what the blue lit icons in the front of the router stand for since they are so small and generic. In fact, the only use the blue lights have for me is that the router is working. I use Network Magic for everything else. At the end of the day, however, you should not judge a book (or a router) by its cover. Many of the new top-of-the-line routers currently available have a very Apple-like design to them such as sleek Belkin N1 Vision with its large informative LCD screen or some of Netgears Apple white designs. Nevertheless, while appearance is always tempting, the performance of a router is paramount and the DIR-655's far outperforms any other router out there.
Description of D-Link DIR-655 Extreme-N Gigabit Wireless Router
The D-Link Extreme-N Gigabit Router (DIR-655) is a draft 2.0 802.11n compliant device that delivers up to 14x faster speeds and 6x farther range than 802.11g while staying backward compatible with 802.11g devices. Connect the Extreme-N Gigabit Router to a cable or DSL modem and provide high-speed Internet access to multiple computers, game consoles, and media players. Create a secure wireless network to share photos, files, music, videos, printers, and network storage.Digital Cameras and Photo Categories
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