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Zyxel

Zyxel intros true 450Mbps dual-band router

Zyxel announced today the NBG5715, its first router that offers the higher 450Mbps ceiling throughput speed on both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands at the same time. This is the second router to offer this concurrent high-speed feature, the first being the TEW-692GR from Trendnet.

The new 450Mbps standard is also known as the 3 by 3, in which the router broadcasts the signal in three spatial streams at a time, as opposed to the dual stream of most existing 300Mbps routers. While 3 by 3 Wi-Fi is not new, most other routers that support it, such as the … Read more

Zyxel ships its first 500Mbps power-line adapter

Zyxel announced today that it has now officially joined the Powerline AV+ 500 club with its first adapter, the Zyxel PLA4205.

Similar to the D-Link DHP-501AV and the Netgear XAV5501, this new adapter from Zyxel is designed to offer up to 500Mbps throughput speed via a home's electrical wiring.

In real-world usage, the speed is likely to be much slower than that but probably still faster than a traditional Ethernet connection, which would make it more than fast enough for streaming HD content and other heavy home-networking needs.

Zyxel says its PLA4205 adapter is backward-compatible with previous power-line standards … Read more

Zyxel releases affordable wireless-N router

Currently, one of the most affordable wireless-N routers on the market is the TP-Link TL-WR741ND, which costs around $45. However, Zyxel wanted to break this record by introducing the X150N on Monday; it costs less than $40.

To achieve this new low in pricing, like the TP-Link, the ZyXEL X150 supports the "light" standard of wireless-N, being a single-stream router. It has capped speeds at 150Mbps, which is half of what regular dual-stream N routers have to offer. This is still about three times the speed of a legacy wireless-G router, and for most wireless networking needs, such … Read more

Zyxel NSA-220: A Sophisticated yet simple NAS server

If I had to describe Zyxel's NSA-220 NAS server in a few words, I'd say it's like Synology's DS107+--minus the intimidating amount of features and plus RAID functionality.

The Sinology DS107+, at the time of reviewing, had by far the most features and the most robust, easy-to-use Web-based management. The NSA-220, on the other hand, offers fewer features, while it does come with a similarly impressive and intuitive Web interface. I tried it out briefly and was very happy with it. From creating RAID configurations and user accounts to setting up shared folders, I didn'… Read more

Zyxel media adapter uses HomePlug AV

There are many devices that aim to let you share the multimedia content stuck on your PC with that large HDTV in your living room. Zyxel's DMA1100P digital media adapter is the only such device, however, that uses HomePlug AV Powerline technology to do so. (Netgear's Powerline HD Ethernet Adapter isn't certified as a HomePlug AV device, but it promises the same 200Mbps theoretical throughput as the Zyxel DMA1100.)

Still, for those looking to stream HD video and music and can't do it wirelessly--perhaps your TV and your home theater are too far apart or you … Read more

Carry your hard drive with you

Zyxel's new NSA-220 NAS drive plus media server offers two empty drive bays so that you can bring your own SATA drives, up to 1.5TB. The drives can be arranged in a RAID-0 or RAID-1 array, and the included Memeo software lets you set up autobackup of your data. Two USB ports let you connect additional hard drives or thumbdrives, and a "copy" button allows you to quickly duplicate the contents of an external drive (or an MP3 player or digital camera) to the NAS-220 without touching your PC.

Aside from acting as a repository for … Read more

An adapter for all kinds of media

At CES 2007, Zyxel announced the DMA-1000, a digital media adapter for serving up multimedia files from the PCs in your home to your home entertainment system. The small adapter resembles a wireless router and, in fact, supports both wired and wireless connections via Ethernet and 802.11g Wi-Fi. In addition, it offers a USB port so that you can play files from any USB-based storage device, such as a flash thumbdrive or an MP3 player.

The DMA-1000 supports high-def streaming (1080i) and includes an HDMI connector, as well as S-Video. Unfortunately, 802.11g throughput is insufficient for HD streams, … Read more