Labs

Gigabyte's AirCruiser can be confusing if you log on without a live ADSL modem connection. The Smartsetup wizard tries to detect your WAN connection and displays "Error!" on the screen. There's also a setup wizard, but this helps you configure the WAN interface. Another version of Smartsetup comes with wireless adapters, making it easy to connect to the router, although it didn't prompt us to secure the connection.

Although this router boasts MIMO, the maximum connection

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speed is 54Mb/sec. It still coped with our 720p streaming video test at close range, but the throughput of 14Mb/sec was the slowest of the group, well below the similar 54Mb/sec SMC. The Gigabyte also had the poorest coverage: we couldn't obtain a connection at all when we took our test laptop two rooms away.

When it comes to configuring the router, everything's organised with a familiar expanding menu. You can assign the same IP address to a particular MAC address each time it connects and use port forwarding (virtual server) to allow external connections, although the latter has no presets. You can also use one of the four dynamic DNS services listed.

The firewall has preset modes - high, medium and low - which toggle checkboxes that you can manually select, and there's website blocking by keyword. QoS prioritises time-critical multimedia data, but it isn't easy to set up and isn't in the router's Help file.

Ultimately, the AirCruiser's features aren't as extensive as many rivals, and its poor performance lets it down, even at this price.