Product Reviews

The MIMO routers we've seen provide a way of extending wireless range and transmission speeds. However, none of those routers conforms to a known standard. US Robotics' aim with the Wireless MaxG Router is to get similar results but within the confines of the 802.11g specification. The company claims that you'll enjoy the benefit of the router with any wireless adaptor. However, as it has a 125Mbit/s turbo mode, you'll get the best performance when you use a MaxG adaptor.

We used a PC Card adaptor. The router achieved an incredible 26.21Mbit/s at close range. Moving 10m away we recorded an equally impressive 24.67Mbit/s. We still had a connection more than

Performance isn't the only thing that US Robotics has been working on. Usability has come on in leaps and bounds. It's managed through a web browser; the first time you connect, it starts the configuration wizard. There's lots of onscreen help, and by the end of it you've configured your internet access and network name and turned on security. There's support for WEP and WPA-PSK, so you can choose the security to match your PC's capabilities. The firewall also comes turned on by default.

Once you've finished with the wizard, there's little need to change any other settings. However, should you want to configure some advanced settings, such as port forwarding to get an internet application working properly, you'll find the interface clean and easy to use. It's well laid out, and we had no trouble tracking down options.

The MaxG Router is excellent value and, as it complies with the 802.11g standard, you get the throughput benefits on all devices. It really deserves our Best Buy award.