DrayTek Vigor 2110n review
in Wireless routers
Verdict
A great value router that's stuffed with features and boasts solid speed too.
Review Date: 23 Feb 2010
Reviewed By: Jonathan Bray
Price when reviewed: £97 (£114 inc VAT)
Overall Rating
Features & Design
Value for Money
Performance
For the past few years, DrayTek has topped the tables in our Reliability & Service Awards, and in 2009 readers gave the firm six out of six for reliability, speed and range.
We've no way of testing for long-term reliability in the Labs, but our speed and range tests confirmed the opinion of our readers. At close range (two metres away, with file server connected to the router via Ethernet), we recorded an average speed from router to laptop of 86Mbits/sec, and 57Mbits/sec from laptop to router. That's about as fast as we'd expect a single-band router with only a 10/100 Ethernet connection to go.
In our long range tests, the Vigor performed solidly too. The test laptop was placed 40m away from the router this time, with a wood wall and double glazed window in the way, and we achieved a transmit rate in our tests of 48Mbits/sec and 56Mbits/sec in reverse.
The speeds in both locations were solid enough to maintain dropout-free Full HD video, and the Vigor sailed through our soak test. It maintained a glitch-free VoIP call, smooth iPlayer playback and internet radio playback, while we carried out simultaneous file transfers over SSL VPN, FTP and SMB.
The feature set is unimpeachable. There's built-in support for VPN dial-out, and a subscription-based website-blocking feature to bar websites of a particular category.
A USB port on the rear supports storage devices, printers and mobile broadband dongles, and the http administration pages allow in-depth control. Even ADSL users are catered for: in fact, buy the identical 2710n instead, with an all-but identical feature set, and you'll save money.
It's a very good product and one that, based on the experiences of thousands of PC Pro readers, should be reliable too. It may not boast the interference free benefits of a dual band router, but otherwise it's hard to fault.
Author: Jonathan Bray
From around the web
Great product, good review - but what about NAS speeds?
You mention USB storage devices (such as external HDDs) can be connected, but had anyone any idea of the resulting file transfer speeds.
I have an HDD attached to the back of my Belkin router. The result is usable as NAS for streaming music to my SONOS system, but not as a data drive used from Windows (e.g. navigating a directory structure via Explorer is painfully slow).
By Cantabrian on 24 Feb 2010 
Great product, good review - but what about NAS speeds?
You mention USB storage devices (such as external HDDs) can be connected, but had anyone any idea of the resulting file transfer speeds.
I have an HDD attached to the back of my Belkin router. The result is usable as NAS for streaming music to my SONOS system, but not as a data drive used from Windows (e.g. navigating a directory structure via Explorer is painfully slow).
By Cantabrian on 24 Feb 2010
Is it a modem too?
Is this an ADSL modem too? Otherwise I'll need to buy the modem - at this sort of price I'd expect the modem to be included!
By stephen_elms on 8 Apr 2010
Recommended? You're kidding
I've had the 2710n for about 2 months now. Its fine if you want to use the 'out of the box' settings. But adding any URL filtering, setting more than one SSID, or basically doing anything you might have bought this router for in the first place causes a gradual degradation until the internet is unusable. I have now reverted to my old Belkin router until I can find something that actually works. Recomended? Don't make me laugh
By projexe on 13 Aug 2010
DrayTek Vigor 2110n Review
@Projexe and stephen_elms - try this router http://tenda.cn/product/show.php?productid-343.htm
l.
Been using this a while now, and it's not let me down. Give it a go. It's not expensive and does the job. Has modem if you're ADSL.
By millanaise on 29 Dec 2010
Still recommended? You're still kidding!
I heartily agree with projexe who commented on 13 August 2010. Perhaps if you make no changes to the default settings of the router it will function but I have found that its performance deteriorates with use. I've wasted a lot of time on this device. Draytek's support is surly at best but usually is nonexistent.
By dkellygb on 13 Jun 2011
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