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DrayTek Vigor 2830n review

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Verdict

Great price, great performance and superb security features. Highly recommended

Review Date: 2 Aug 2011

Reviewed By: Ian Marks

Price when reviewed: £200 (£240 inc VAT)

Overall Rating

Features & Design
6 stars out of 6

Value for Money
5 stars out of 6

Performance
6 stars out of 6

PCPRO Recommended

The DrayTek Vigor 2830n has the air of a wireless router that means business. With its curved white box, three aerials and all its ports on the front of the unit for easy access, it looks every bit the professional model. Once you begin using it, you realise this air of professionalism isn’t just limited to the Vigor’s appearance.

In fact, the sheer number of features underlines what a superb device this is. Firstly dual-band wireless enables you to use both 2.4GHz and 5GHz when necessary, and it’s even possible to link the Vigor to an ADSL broadband connection and your school network simultaneously. In a school with a lot of pupils trying to access the internet at the same time, this could prove an excellent way of sharing out the load.

DrayTek goes one step further still: plug a 3G mobile broadband dongle into the USB port and you can have a third wireless network working simultaneously, or available in the event of both other networks failing. The router’s USB port can also act as a print server, although this proved tricky to set up and get to work reliably.

Schools will also like the Vigor’s security features. A built-in firewall, WPA2 protection and MAC address filtering are all standard, but more interestingly for schools the Vigor offers content filtering. There are the usual whitelist and blacklist features, which both worked effectively, but it’s even possible to stop learners from visiting social-networking sites, for instance, during school hours. If visitors sometimes use your wireless network, you can also grant them temporary access to the internet (again, with content filtering if you wish) and keep them hidden away from the school network.

In use, the Vigor had no trouble with high numbers of concurrent users (up to 32 are supported), allowing all to have trouble-free internet browsing. In most of our tests it achieved speeds of around 60Mbits/sec, and this was coupled with an excellent range which saw very little speed drop off around the whole school.

The Vigor 2830n isn’t cheap, but if you need reliable and fast wireless access coupled with excellent security features in your school, then we can’t recommend it highly enough.

Author: Ian Marks

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Comments

User comments

Not as good as i expected

I put a lot of research into upgrading to this router from my dlink dir-655, and sadly it didnt live up to my expectations. I have 100mb cable broadband and this router battled to achieve download speeds over 60mb even after i disable the QoS and firewall. The web interface was tricky with loads of features i probably wouldnt use yet it lacked some basic features. ie ip reservations and you couldnt see who was connected wirelessly. The range seemed better than my old dir-655 but my son said he notice some lagging playing games online. I have about 8 devices connected wirelesly and 4 wired devices. I can honestly say that my old dlink dir-655 router out performed the Draytek 2830n by a long way. I have since returned this router and asked for it to be exchanged for a dlink dsr-1000n i am hoping the new dlink router will be better.

By FireBall2008 on 31 Aug 2011

Just a point!

The router reviewed here is the Dual Band version the 2830Vn, which according to the Draytek website is SINGLE band (2.4Ghz only), you need to have a "Plus" model to get both bands (2.4 & 5Ghz).

I suspect that the Plus variant is considerably more expensive than the single band variant.

Could someone clarify this please.

By SKINHEAD1967 on 22 Sep 2011

Smart monitor doesn't work

I bought this router as it seemed perfect for my needs if a little expensive. Beware currently it doesn't work with Smartmonitor software as Draytek claim. I have been told it will at some unspecified future date.

By ken1414 on 29 Oct 2011

Dual Band

As the comment above mentioned Draytek models are VERY confusing.

All of this family are called 2830 however the V models have VOIP, and only the n models have wireless.

In addition only the 'Plus' models are dual band and even then they are 'switchable' and cannot project two hotspots at once.

The model with everything is the 2830Vn-plus.

Buyer beware

P.S Love mine - solid as a rock.

By GRidout on 17 Jan 2012

2830 range

If you go to Draytek's website the whole product range is listed with each models features..
on the single v Dual band pricing it's only about £20-£30 more..
I love the support with the manufacturer, If I have a problem just ring them up and they deal with it normally there and then..
I have installed 4 of these in the last week and they are well worth the money...
I'm a self employed IT consultant with no allegience to them, I just like quality at a good price.

By jezsuttonuk on 19 Jan 2012

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