Product Reviews

If you have an ADSL broadband connection and you want to share it between two or more PCs, then you need an ADSL router. And unless your PCs are all within a short distance of your phone socket, you're far better off using a wireless network - you won't have to trail network cables all around your house. This new product from Hercules is designed to make sharing your ADSL connection wirelessly as easy as possible.

In our recent group test of wireless routers, the device that performed the best was the US Robotics' SureConnect ADSL gateway. It completed our file transfer test in one minute 20 seconds. The Hercules completed the same test in just 55 seconds. We performed a second, long-range, test with our

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laptop three rooms away from our router. The transfer time tailed off to two minutes 15 seconds - not lightning quick, but not bad.

As well as being fast, the Hercules is also very easy to setup. It can be configured in the normal way, by typing the router's IP address into your Web browser and then using its configuration page. Alternatively, you could use the configuration program. This little piece of software is very good for anyone who's completely new to wireless. It explains, step-by-step, everything you need to know to set up your wireless network. It doesn't just cover the configuration of your router, it also tells you how to connect it to your phone socket using the ADSL splitter (or 'microfilter'), and how to position the router in the room for best coverage. When you get into the configuration pages themselves, all the advanced settings are hidden. Using the settings that are readily on display, we connected to our ADSL provider, set up a connection and secured our wireless network within less than half an hour.

Our only real criticisms of this router concern its looks - it's big, and pretty ugly. Its metallic blue finish makes it very noticeable - not ideal if you want a discreet and understated device for your living room. But this is still an excellent product.