Kit of the Year Apple‘s Apple TV was launched in 2007, but it has taken until 2009 for rivals to really get to grips with the notion of a device you can use to play local and network-connected content on your TV. Too many storage vendors have tried their hand, offering good content capacity but usually accessed through a slow, poor UI. Western Digital got it right by leaving out the storage – you add your own – and getting network connectivity.
Western Digital WD TV Live
The WD TV grows up. The original was a great way of hooking up a hard drive full of content to your television, but the Live makes the gadget a fully fledged network media player, allowing you to hide the HDD right out of the way. It’s not perfect – the UI is still a tad clunky and inconsistent in places – but it does the job and its format support is excellent.
Review Belkin’s Gigabit Powerline HD mains-wiring network adaptor is the first we’ve seen to claim to be able to delivery data transfer rates of up to 1000Mb/s.
We stress the word ‘claim’ and the phrase ‘up to’. Makers of powerline kit also market adaptors that, they say, deliver bandwidth of up to 200Mb/s. But no one who uses one will ever get a data throughput anywhere near that. Almost every 200Mb/s adaptor uses a 10/100 Ethernet port, capping the throughput at 100Mb/s.
Belkin’s Powerline HD: capable of Gigabit speeds?
That’s because real-world powerline speeds are occasionally slightly above but usually lower than 100Mb/s. There’s simply no point in the vendor integrating a Gigabit Ethernet port: the link speed means you’ll never get any advantage from it.
Powerline isn’t alone in this. All networking kit performs some way below the maximum speed quoted by vendors to make sure their offerings don’t appear slower than anyone else’s. It’s high time the networking industry came up with a better measure, but don’t hold your breath waiting for one. Read the rest of this entry »
Review Despite an early charge, powerline networking has suffered something of a stall over the past few years. The stuff is still shifting off the shelves, but we haven’t seen much in the way of improvements in the technology.
D-Link’s DHP-303: no change over the years but the model number?
Back in 2007, we were graced with 200Mb/s adaptors that provided a more reliable alternative to wireless when streaming HD video. Since then very little has changed and there’s still no sign of the 400Mb/s adaptors that the rival HomePlug and UPA groups have been shouting about the past year or so.
So when we heard D-Link had some new adaptors for us, we had our fingers crossed in the hope they would be the first to sport a 400Mb/s chip. Sadly, they don’t. Instead, the DHP-303 units are very similar – both visually and on paper – to D-Link’s DHP-300 adaptors from a couple of years back.
Before we go any further, it’s best to clear up D-Link’s somewhat bizarre naming convention. In what can only be seen as an effort to confuse, it calls the starter kit – as reviewed here – the DHP-303, although the individual adaptors are known as DHP-302s. Read the rest of this entry »
Review There are two main criticisms that can be levelled at Qnap’s TS-209 range of Nas boxes: they have poor file transfer speeds and poor access to the hard drives. The TS-219P tackles those issues head on with a faster 1.2GHz Marvell processor, compared with a 500MHz Marvell chip in the TS-209P, and sensible hot-swappable bays.
Qnap’s TS-219P Turbo Nas
There are no hard drives supplied with this twin bay Nas box, so you’ll need to screw your chosen Sata hard drives to the hard drive caddy that includes screws and fittings for both 3.5in and, pleasingly, 2.5in drives too. Unlike the TS-209, there’s no faceplate nonsense covering the hard drives, however, it’s not as pretty as a TS-209. The TS-219P goes for more of a server look like Netgear’s ReadyNas range and is very sturdily built.
The hot-swappable caddies have a thick lever and a lock on the front. There are also four LEDs – two for hard drive status, one for eSata and one for Lan – that change colour so you can diagnose potential problems. Read the rest of this entry »
Review Ah, convergence, that buzzword of the 1990s – so often promising a lot, but delivering little. Evidently, D-Link is toying with the convergence concept with the neatly packaged Xtreme N DIR-685. This four-port Gigabit router features 802.11n Wi-Fi, a 3.2in LCD panel – billed as a digital photo frame – and Nas functionality too. It certainly looks the part, but does it deliver on its promise?
D-Link’s Xtreme N DIR-685
There have been fully featured routers before – the Zyxel P660HWP with its Wi-Fi, four Ethernet ports, ADSL modem and Homeplug all-in-one springs to mind – but few undertake as much as the DIR-685.
Indeed, D-Link has got it spot on with the DIR-685’s design. Rigid black plastic, varying between textured and polished on the front face, with no ungainly antennae pointing out. Heck, if it wasn’t for the ports around the back and the slightly-too-small LCD panel, onlookers would think it was nothing but a digital photo frame. Read the rest of this entry »
