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28 January 2011
Opinion of the DLink DGL-4500 WiFi Router
This router has become my personal favorite since a year ago when the previous model (DGL-4300) stopped being made. For many years, the DGL-4300 was an excellent router that could sometimes be gotten for $90 after mail-in rebate. The DGL-4300 was a simple design, a single Wi-Fi 5/8 wave antenna, 4 gigabit Ethernet LAN ports, 1 gigabit WAN port, and an interesting embedded bandwidth shaping hardware called "Game Fuel".
The new DGL-4500 has 3 antennas because it has a more sensitive Mimo transceiver, longer distance because of the improved antenna design, supports the 2.5Ghz (B and G) and the 5Ghz (A) Wi-Fi radio bands. The average price I've seen for this router is about $175.
This router is extremely quick.
Initial Wi-Fi connections to the router complete promptly. How many times have you connected to a Wi-Fi router, and waited a minute or two before you actually get an IP address from it? Many people think this is just the way it's supposed to be, because this is the way it is everywhere. It's been true at their neighbor’s house, it's been true at the local coffee shop, and it's been true at work. The typical reason for this is that when someone is told to go out and get a Wi-Fi router, they make a decision based solely on price rather than performance. Bad performance has become a fact of life that the collective "we" have learned to accept and tolerate. This router doesn't do that.
This router also injects a minimal delay into your internet surfing performance. Most people with a cheap Wi-Fi router don't realize that their router is putting a non-trivial delay on the bandwidth that they are receiving from their ISP. The delay is coming from the slow processor built into the router. This router doesn't do that.
The Alternative:
Cheap Wi-Fi routers tend not to multitask well, so they don't do a good job of sharing the internet bandwidth when there are two or more people actively surfing - which happens more often than you think.
Real Life Experience
A few months ago, and after many years of good and reliable service, our DGL-4300 Wi-Fi router failed. I happened to carry a cheap Linksys E1000 Wi-Fi router to swap in something for a customer to use while a good router is ordered and being shipped.
After swapping in the cheap router, I asked my Business Manager whether she noticed any performance difference between the two routers. She didn’t notice any difference. I told her it was important for me to get her independent opinion, because I may have been "drinking the Kool-Aid" for many years about The DGL-4500 router, and this would be a good opportunity to put that assumption to the test.
But a week later, she started to report performance differences with the new (cheap) Wi-Fi router.
Why did the performance report change from “There is no difference” to “The internet in my office is really bad”? Since performance and reliability were consistently good with the original high end router, this was the norm, actual performance wasn't paid attention to. The difference in switching to a cheap router wasn’t apparent immediately because it did provide internet connectivity - which had not been present for several days. In addition, there are many times when I'm out of the office so we're not both using the internet at the same time. However, when the two of us are actively surfing at the same time with this new router, we both notice a non-trivial degradation in internet performance (bandwidth, and interactive response) that wasn't there before.
Bottom Line:
The DGL-4500 isn't a cheap router. Not everyone has a business case for a $200 Wi-Fi router. But if you can take the longer view, I think you will be very happy with this choice.
Recommendations:
(Listed below are three links from different companies. Prices tend to vary among suppliers. One may be less expensive one week, but most expensive the next. We like dealing with NewEgg the best, because the service they provide is unparalleled.)
A link to the DGL-4500 from New Egg:
From PC Rush:
From Capitol Supply:
Are there other
topics you’d like me to cover? Send an email to
Gail@GeekForHireInc.com.
Happy Computing!
Gail P. Eddy
Business Manager
Geek For Hire, Inc.
www.GeekForHireInc.com
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