Belkin F7D4302UK Play Wireless Router (802.11n, 300 Mbps)
Belkin F7D4302UK Play Wireless Router (802.11n, 300 Mbps)
- Belkin Play Wireless Router double your performance and bandwidth with Dual-Band N technology. Simultaneous networks eliminate interference and optimize media-intensive applications like videos and gaming.
Preconfigured security settings with WPS/WPA2 and WEP encryptionDual-band technology optimizes HD videos and gaming experiencesSpeeds up to 300 Mbps on wireless-N networksEasy Start gets you up and running securely in minutesApps for wireless printing, automatic file back-up, and sending music from your computer to your stereoSelf-Healing automatically detects and fixes problemsFour LAN ports, one WAN port, and one USB 2.0 port support use with multiple devicesEnergy-Star-certified power adapter
Rating: 
(out of 1 reviews)
List Price: £79.99
Price: £65.29
Review by Romayne Wright for Belkin F7D4302UK Play Wireless Router (802.11n, 300 Mbps)
Rating:
I suspect some others may find no problems in setting up this router, but I did have some, albeit seemingly caused by some glitch in my Win 7 which just would not let me install the router, or see it, or basically let me do anything – even Belkin missed the problem when I rang them. I’m fortunate in having a dual boot system and decided to see if I could get it installed in XP, and so I did. One thing I didn’t like on installing, is the inability to change the installation folder – it automatically installs itself into the C drive, and obviously once it has, there’s no way to safely move it. All that aside, once I did get it going,it functioned perfectly well. However, I feel the additional software, especially the Daily DJ is a bit of a waste of space and a bit gimmicky. I liked the idea of having my music automatically playing for me (which it stated on the blurb somewhere), but in reality no matter how I tried, all that happened was that it set up some playlists in Itunes (which I had to have running at the time!), so you would then manually have to start playing them – nothing I couldn’t have done myself in half the time and less hassle (takes AGES for it to set up the playlists if you use more than 10 songs or so!!). The other features are equally a bit redundant IMHO, apart from the Music Mover which is great if you have an XBox or Playstation to route music to. The USB printing is useful if you require it and easy to set up but nothing more than most other routers provide now. I couldn’t verify the backup as I don’t have an external drive, but can’t really see how it would be of any value to have the router undertaking the task over whatever software your drive might come with, or you probably already have.
It uses exactly the same setup style to all other Belkin routers (through an online page), and all the features have plenty of help to understand. The manual comes on the setup disk only and seems a bit smaller than previous ones which maybe says something.
Overall, a solid router but without the nice look of some other models. Only shows a single light on top and is quite big being upright, in comparison to some earlier style models (with the antennae) which were all flatter. I can’t help but feel Belkin are errantly advertising the extras to push sales of what is really a pretty standard modem, and in that sense, I feel it’s slightly overpriced, but others may disagree. I’d still reocmmend it if you do like the idea of a solid router with excellent manufacturer support – this was the first time in my 5-year experience with Belkin routers that they failed to fix the problem with one phonecall!