Like SMC, Trendnet might not be the first name that comes to mind when you think wireless routers. You're more likely to think of bigger names like D-Link or Netgear. But (again like SMC), the company is doing fine and producing competitive wireless equipment at attractive prices. Though it follows the annoying industry-wide trend of Really Long Router Names, the Trendnet 300Mbps Wireless N Gigabit Router (model TEW-633GR) sells for only around $125 and has all the features you could want—except for one.

We might as well get this out of the way at the start. Though it incorporates Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) wired ports, the TEW-633GR uses only the 2.4-GHz band for 802.11n traffic. This is fine for the wireless-g or 802.11b clients on your wireless network: They'll be able to connect. But because they're crowding the same spectrum with your new "n" clients, the "n" clients will see a definite drop in performance. Also, if you've got a lot of neighboring access points or wireless routers clogging up the 2.4-spectrum in your area, those will have an adverse effect on throughput as well. So here's my most serious ding against the TEW-633GR: If you're going to go to the trouble of upgrading the wired ports to GigE speeds, why wouldn't you tack on a 5-GHz-capable radio so that "n" can perform at its optimal throughput? It just doesn't make sense to skip this step. For four good routers that didn't skip it, see my roundup of dual-band routers.

But if you're not in a crowded area, wirelessly speaking, and if you don't have any legacy "g" or "b" clients to worry about, then the TEW-633GR is certainly a competitive choice. First, it looks cool in the way that the Linksys WRT600N does. The router has a sleek glossy black finish with three antennas on the right side, the usual series of activity/speed LED indicators on the front, four GigE switched ports, and one GigE WAN port on the back. There's one thing out of the ordinary: Trendnet also included a side-mounted Wi-Fi Protected Setup switch for easy WPS client configuration (WPS is a standard for easy and secure establishment of a wireless network), and a slide switch that turns off the wireless networking. I really liked the latter, as you usually need to hit a router's Web interface to disable wireless networking. This can be an easy way to check for specific network problems if things go wrong.

Setup is conducted via the usual CD-based routine. Plug a workstation into one of the router's wired ports, insert the CD, and the setup wizard kicks off. Like most of the other routers we've reviewed recently, the Trendnet seeks to take you from powering the router up all the way through setting up your wireless and wired networks. It looks as if Trendnet and D-Link have the same OEM outfit programming their setup installations, because the two routines looked very much alike, and both had similar problems—though Trendnet's were far more pronounced.

When I ran this install routing on the D-Link DIR-855, the install wizard refused to see my Internet connection. Fortunately, the router itself saw the connection just fine and finished the rest of the basic install on its own. The TEW-633GR had more problems, however. First, it refused to see the wired adapters of my Dell XPS and Gateway E275-M notebooks. The wizard tells you to unplug your Ethernet cable from your existing modem or router before the installation and then tries to check for the adapter. But when you obediently unplug the cable it simply assumes, because the cable is unplugged, that there isn't an adapter at all. You need to skip ahead a couple of steps in the wizard and plug your PC into the router (and power the router on) before the wizard can even begin its run.

That was annoying enough, but then the wizard hung when looking for the Internet connection as well. Switching to another PC and starting the wizard all over again, including the trick of powering the router on before I was told, allowed me to get through the wizard. In case you want to bypass this and go directly to the router's management screen—good luck. The default Web address is 192.168.10.1 (usually it's 0.1 or 1.1—thanks, Trendnet). However, neither that nor the router's default password is listed in your startup materials. You'll need to go dig through your docs to find those.

And as if all that wasn't enough, the install wizard installed a trial version of Network Magic without ever giving me a chance to opt out. The wizard finished and the Network Magic icons were there. I had to uninstall after the fact. That's bad software citizenship, no matter how you slice it.

All that said, setting up the wireless network wasn't particularly hard. Enter a wireless network name (aka SSID), choose your security mode (again, I highly recommend WPA2, though, if you've got older "g" and "b" clients, you'll likely get pushed back to WEP unless you can find new drivers), click "Finish," and you're done. Like SMC, Trendnet's setup utility provides well-written "Learn More" descriptions of the important setup steps; if you're confused, browsing these should clear things up. Once completed, the wizard shows a summary of your setup information, reminds you to record this information somewhere, and then saves a text file with the info to your desktop. Very thorough—and I like thorough.

I had one inexplicable hiccup, post-setup. Upon checking my network after setting up the router, none of the PCs could see my HP Color LaserJet 3800dn. The printer was set to receive an IP address via DHCP, but the address refused to take. My XP, Vista, OS X, and Fedora 8 clients, as well as my Netgear ReadyNAS NV+, all took their addresses just fine, but the HP had to be manually configured with a static IP address before anything could print. The fix was easy enough, and, for things like printers and NAS boxes, I like to assign static IPs anyway. But networking newbies will doubtless not be pleased when their printer doesn't show up without further configuration.—Next: TrendNet Management

TrendNet Management

There's more to setups than just the basics, so I clicked on over to Trendnet's standard Web-based management screens. These were clear and intuitive, with the same help descriptions as on the router—useful, because Trendnet has configured this router with plenty of options.

For example, the TEW-633GR, like the D-Link DIR-855 and the SMC Barricade, supports Virtual Servers. This feature allows you to use a static or DDNS-supplied public IP address to host multiple Web servers off your network. This is still primarily a small-office function, but home users looking to host their own photo-sharing sites, or even power users looking to run FTP or a secondary e-mail server, will love the Virtual Server feature.

The router also has multiple forms of QoS-style traffic protection. You'll find support for a standard QoS rules page, StreamEngine for protecting specific kinds of gaming traffic, and WISH (Wireless Intelligent Stream Handling) for protecting a variety of traffic over your wireless network. I found the setup screens for all these features only moderately intuitive. Still, Trendnet's done a good job of including workable default values where applicable, and if you read through the help descriptions, you should be fine.

The TEW-633GR also has plenty of security features, including an SPI firewall, traffic filtering, and content filtering. The firewall and traffic-filtering rules setup pages aren't for newbies, but the parental content controls are easy enough. These let you set up rules for restricted Web access (including a white list) for specific times of day. There's also an e-mail report you can issue to yourself of all router activity just to keep an eye on things. For telecommuters, the TEW-633GR also supports VPN via standard IPsec or PPTP protocols.—Next: TEW-633GR: Protection

TEW-633GR: Protection

Performance was a mixed bag, mainly because of the 2.4-GHz-only issue and the fact that even at home I'm in a neighborhood where you can constantly scan between four and six other access points. Still, at an optimal range of 20 feet and using Trendnet's own 300-Mbps Wireless N USB Adapter on a Dell XPS notebook running Vista Business, my Ixia IxChariot and JPerf throughput tests averaged out to 186 Mbps throughput. That's very quick for a 2.4-GHz connection.

This changed rapidly, however, the further away I moved from the router. At 50 feet, I was down to 138 Mbps average, and at 80 feet in the drive I was down to 57 Mbps. Adding a ThinkPad T42 with its internal wireless-g client did even more damage, though less than I would have thought. Throughput at optimal range dropped to only 156 Mbps; at 50 feet the speed averaged 91 Mbps, and at 80 feet it fell to 36 Mbps. Though the the TEW-633GR isn't nearly as fast as the dual-band routers in 5-GHz mode, these are respectable numbers for a 2.4-GHz box.

With decent throughput, especially considering its 2.4-GHz handicap, I think the Trendnet TEW-633GR is good router for its low price tag. I'm unimpressed with the installation wizard, but if you scan the docs you can bypass it entirely. I still think GigE wired ports require 5 GHz on the wireless side, but if you can live with the wireless throughput numbers, then you're getting an awful lot of other high-end functionality for your Benjamin and a quarter.

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