Product Reviews

Hercules's Wireless ADSL Router's over-large casing makes it look like an expensive bit of designer hi-fi gear. While the large size may be a bit over the top, however, it's one of the easiest products to configure that we've seen.

Rather than the usual web-based configuration utility, Hercules provides its router with a dedicated Windows configuration application. The first steps guide you pictorially through the process of connecting it to your ADSL connection.

Next, the configuration assistant helps you configure your internet and wireless settings. The wireless settings

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are excellent, and let you change the name of the network and the security settings. Security is classified as Weak (64-bit WEP), Medium (128-bit WEP) and High (WPA-PSK), so you won't feel thrown in at the deep end. Unfortunately there's no way to generate WEP keys automatically, so you're left to tackle that one yourself.

Apart from this, the router is surprisingly friendly. Hercules turns on the firewall by default and, unless you have problems getting internet applications working, you shouldn't have to change any other settings. Once configured, you can use the web-based management system to alter any of your settings without having to resort to the original configuration utility.

The router only supports standard 54Mbit/s 802.11g traffic and has no turbo mode. There's no PC Card network adaptor in the box, so we tested using the separately available adaptor. At close range it managed 12.61Mbit/s, and at 10m through a wall it achieved 10.75Mbit/s. This is similar to Zyxel's router, which has a turbo mode.

The Wireless ADSL Router is expensive, but its simplistic installation and configuration make it an attractive choice for network novices.