Netgear DGN2000 review

Netgear’s DGN2000 Draft-N wireless ADSL router is easy to set up.

Its web interface includes a configuration wizard that detects your ADSL settings automatically and simply prompts you to enter your username and password. This makes getting set up as easy as connecting the router to your PC and phone line and logging into it via a web browser. The installation disc even shows you how to connect your ADSL line and PC to your new router in an illustrated step-by-step guide.

The DGN2000 has lots of security options that will be useful if you want to keep tabs on your family’s browsing habits. You can blacklist sites either by domain or by keywords, and the blacklist can be linked to a schedule, so banned sites can be made available only at specified hours. Manually configuring a full range of sites to block is tiresome, though, so dedicated web-filtering software is still the best choice.

If you want more advanced control, the firewall settings are reasonably friendly and well documented, although we had to apply a firmware update to get them to work properly. You can restrict access to specific IP address ranges and ports used by common services. You can even add port ranges of your own, making it easy to block those commonly used for games or peer-to-peer clients. Rules can be applied to specific PCs or your entire network.

Wireless transfer speeds were good, if unremarkable. We were impressed by the 22.4Mbit/s throughput at 20m when using our Centrino 2 laptop. This is one of the fastest speeds we’ve seen at this distance and means you should get a reliable wireless connection anywhere in your home. At 10m, we achieved speeds of 51.4Mbit/s with Netgear’s WN111 Wireless-N USB adaptor (around £26 including VAT), which went up to 58.6Mbit/s when we enabled channel-bonding. However, our channel-bonded signal failed at 20m so we recommend that you use this option only if you’re not in range of other wireless networks.

Netgear’s DGN2000 is easy to set up and configure, but Linksys’s WAG160N-UK is just as simple, a bit cheaper and considerably faster.