View Single Post
Old 30th June 2008
phoenix's Avatar
phoenix phoenix is offline
Risen from the ashes
 
Join Date: May 2008
Posts: 696
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by 18Googol2 View Post
Dlink products should be avoided at any cost for personal use, let alone business.
As with every vendor: It depends on the product. The el-cheapo router form everyone sucks, but what do you expect for $40? The mid-range routers from everyone pretty much suck, but what do you expect for $70? The high-end routers from everyone pretty much rock, but what else would you expect for $100+? Same with the wireless NICs (and it really sucks how they change the chipset without changing the model number, and sometimes without changing the serial number, and sometimes without changing the revision).

No one single vendor is the best across the board. Pick and choose your products, though, and you can find excellent items from everyone.

D-Link was one of the first to offer real 802.11g products based on Atheros chipsets (ie, they worked in every OS out there, with native drivers, with all the capabilities of the standard, and then some extras). Their DI-624 wireless router is still one of the best I've ever seen or used (for home purposes, nothing comes close to Colubris for business use). They also have some of the best customer support, especially when it comes to replacing things on warranty (received two replacements for my DI-624 over the course of the three year warranty). They're also one of the few home products vendor to offer real warranties, over 3 years instead of 1.

Using an onboard wireless NIC, a NetGear PC-Card NIC, and a D-LINK PC-Card NIC (all with Atheros chipsets) and a D-LINK router (also with an Atheros chipset), I have one the most stable, most reliable, fastest 802.11g wireless networks around. Does everything I need it to (Internet access, stream videos from the server upstairs to the tv via the laptop, play music off the server upstairs to the stereo via another laptop, transfer files, etc) without issues or hiccups. Works in Windows XP Pro SP2 (gf laptop), Xubuntu 7.04 (media laptop), Kubuntu 7.10 (work/media laptop), FreeBSD 5/6/7 (work laptop at various points in time).

Haven't used any D-Link products since they've refreshed their product line (and changed the colours of everything to black and orange) so can't comment on their current products. But at the time that 802.11g was getting big, and Atheros chipsets were the top-end, there wasn't anything better than a D-Link.
__________________
Freddie

Help for FreeBSD: Handbook, FAQ, man pages, mailing lists.

Last edited by phoenix; 30th June 2008 at 10:35 PM. Reason: Expand on things a bit more.
Reply With Quote