5 stars
Price: $119.99
D-Link DIR-645 is a break
of router’s rule. Instead of being a fat short box with a short antenna, it is
a bright black round cylinder. According to D-Link, it has something special
inside to help improve wireless speed – which the company calls SmartBeam
technology.
Instead of two or three
normal isotropic antennas at the top, DIR-645 has six directional antennas
inside its cover. They are designed to comunicate with wireless devices on your
network and focus capacity on devices that need it, improve coverage range
while avoiding interference. This method is against the one carried out by many
high-glass routers that use less crowded 5GHz bandwidth to improve performance:
DIR-645 just uses 2.4GHz.
Certainly, SmartBeam
sounds effective. When tested with laptop using Centrino 2, DIR-645 outstood as
the fastest router we have ever seen, outspacing Buffalo GigaStation WZR-G450H.
At 1m range, we saw 46.6Mbytes/s in comparison to 44.3Mbytes/s for Buffalo, and
in the test of 25m range where some routers even can not maintain the connection,
DIR-645 could transfer files at a speed of 18.5Mbytes/s compared to
18.4Mbytes/s for Buffalo WZR-HP-G450H. Turning on channel-bonding turbo mode
slowed down everything, so we set router in 20MHz mode.
However, when we tested
router with D-Link DWA-160 USB adaptor our testing speed was slowed down
staright away. We only saw 13.1Mbytes/s and 2Mbytes/s speeds at the ranges of
10m and 25m, respectively. It is completely in contrast with WZR-HP-G450H,
which can stranfer files even faster than its own dongle. We tried testing
router again with Dynamode WL-700N-MRT adaptor. With this one, we saw
56.1Mbytes/s, 54.8Mbytes/s, and 15Mbytes/s at the ranges of 1m, 10m, and 25m,
respectively.
DIR-645 is easy to set
up and configure. It has no preset modem, so you will have to plug cable or
ADSL router into ‘Internet’ port of DIR-645 with Ethernet cable. Once you did
that, you just need to plug PC or laptop into D-Link router via Ethernet and
run the setup CD. It will check internet connectivity, remind you to set up
admin password for router, and take you through setting up WPA or WPA2
encryption for wireless network. All steps are explained in detail, which makes
the whole process become easy; the only strange part is that you have to
disable Windows firewall before the setup runs, but you can turn it on later,
and you are protected by router’s firewall during setup process.
With higher-glass
setups, you will need router’s web interface. It is well presented with the
main menus along the top, and the secondary menus on the left. It is not as
nice as the interface of Cisco X3000 or third-party DD-WRT firmware, but it is
easy to find the port forwarding feature and QoS, and besides, options are
clear and explained obviously.
DIR-645 has a back USB
port that you can use to share media file from flash USB drive or hard drive.
Router can act as iTunes server or in DLNA mode, which allows you to share
music, videos, and photos with DLNA player apps such as Windows Media Player,
or with compatible devices such as TVs and phones. We did not encounter any
problem in sharing media file from flash USB drive or hard drive with NTFS or
FAT32 format – we could not make Buffalo WZR-HP-G450H’s media sharing feature
work.
Share interests
You can also share the
whole flash USB drive or hard drive via internet as if it was NAS device. You
will have to install D-Link SharePort Plus app on each PC you want to use for
accessing the drive – your network drive appears on the software, and you just
need to double click to open it in Windows Explorer. It is for you to share USB
printer online, but while the software was able to recognize our Lexmark
Interpret S405 printer, we encountered a BSoD hanging (deathly black screen)
when trying to connect to it.
D-Link DIR-645 is an
extremely impressive router, and is the fastest router we have ever seen when
tranferring files to a Centrino 2 laptop. D-Link 802.11n Dongle is
disappointing, but when we combined router with a cheap Dynamode model, we
found a high speed. It is not as fast as Buffalo WZR-HP-G450H in general, but
it has better interface, and USB storage features do well. It is worths buying.
Summary
Verdict. Fast, easy, and good-looking, DIR-645 is an
excellent router. However, avoid D-Link DWA-160 dongle.
Cable wireless
router. 802.11n (300Mbytes/s),
4 LAN ports (10/100/1000Mbytes/s), 1 WAN port, UPnP, QoS, 190x95x117mm,
two-year RTB warranty.
Power
consumption: 3W at active mode
