Product Reviews

New Draft-N routers may promise stunning speed, but they often fail to deliver. If you're unconvinced about upgrading, don't overlook the seemingly bog-standard 802.11g routers.

Take Buffalo's new WBMR-G125, for instance. It's compact, inexpensive and has a built-in ADSL2+ modem for broadband connections up to 24Mbit/s and four 10/100Mbit/s ports at the rear. It also has Buffalo's AirStation One-Touch Secure System (AOSS). This lets you add laptops equipped with Buffalo's matching PC card to your wireless network quickly and easily.

The system works well. We installed the drivers and the ClientManager 3 software on a Windows

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XP laptop and were then prompted to click the AOSS button onscreen, as well as one on the front of the router. Less than two minutes after the security LED started flashing the PC card had a secure connection using WPA. It really couldn't be simpler.

Another bonus of using the WLI-CB-G54S PC card (which costs around £18) is that you can switch the router into High-Speed mode. This increases throughput from 802.11g's 54Mbit/s to 125Mbit/s. We were pleasantly surprised that this affordable combination outperformed some Draft-N routers.

The close-range performance was excellent and we saw little drop off in speed at long range. Even at 25m, the 3.9Mbit/s throughput we measured is enough for internet access. Centrino speeds were lower, as expected, but the connection was reliable throughout.

The router's web interface is intuitively arranged, although the cluttered design isn't the best we've seen. There's a basic Quality of Service menu plus DDNS services (including DynDNS.org), DMZ and port forwarding.

While the WBMR-G125 isn't bursting with features, it has the essentials, a good turn of speed and AOSS. At this price, it's great value.