V2X

I went shopping today for a new wireless router to replace my 3 year old unit. As soon as I stepped into Best Buy I was overwhelmed by the selection, but knew I was going to go with a Net Gear brand since I have always had good luck with them in the past.

All I need in a wireless router is security, high speed and the ability to set up a vpn, so I can log into my pc when I am away. I am not a gamer, so the gaming features are not a big deal to me.

After going through the isle and reading every box, then looking up reviews on them from my web browser on my phone, I settled on the D-Link DIR-655 Xtreme N Gigabit Router. I know I said I was going to go with Net Gear, but I was impressed with the reviews on the DIR-655 Xtreme.

The DIR-655 claims speeds up to 300Mbp and it had an additional USB port, which I found as a nice addition to the unit. Also, the unit can be setup horizontal or vertical with the optional stand, included in the box.

Setting it up was one of the easiest router installs I’ve encountered and I thought the unit was attractive and well built. After setting it up, I fired up Netflix on my DVD player and the movie loaded quicker than in the past, so I am already impressed with the speed.

Finding the unit and using my laptop went smooth and I can tell a big difference in the speed when I transferred files from my laptop to my desktop during testing. I don’t have anything to test the speed, but it just feels more responsive. In future reviews I may need to test speeds, but I am not doing a comparison review, so felt it’s not necessary.

I updated the firmware, set my wireless security passwords and done. Overall, I am happy with my purchase and glad I finally upgraded. We have several computers in the house with everything from Linux, XP and Windows 7, and they all worked great with the new router.

Without doing a head to head test with another unit, what else can you really say? I can tell you that setup was easy, and the unit was faster than the previous router, so I am happy with it. If you use the same model, I would love to hear your opinion of it, and/or what you are using.