Labs

Trendnet's TEW-435BRM is a standard 802.11g router with an ADSL2+ modem. It doesn't have any turbo modes, so it's limited to a maximum throughput of 54Mbit/s. It's also the only router in this category that doesn't have a CD-based setup wizard. Instead, you need to use its web-based management page to run the setup wizard.

This is pretty easy to follow, but it only covers getting your internet connection working, and there's no help for wireless networking. Instead, you need to configure wireless separately and enable security. This router supports only WPA and not the newer WPA2 standard. This isn't a huge drawback, though, and WPA is secure enough for use at home.

Configuring the

Performance was about average for an 802.11g wireless router in all our Centrino tests, although the 3.54Mbit/s at 25m was encouraging, as it shows that you can still browse the web at a reasonable distance from the router. Switching to the TEW-421PC CardBus adaptor (£14) produced similar results in all our tests. This was to be expected, as there's no turbo mode.

This adaptor is good value, but it has no Windows Vista drivers, only Windows XP. The TEW0435BRM is reliable and works well if you just want to share an internet connection for web browsing. That said, it costs £17 more than Buffalo's WBMR-G125 and doesn't have QoS or a turbo mode, so it's not as good value.