| Article Index |
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| D-Link DGL-4500 GamerLounge Router Review |
| Page 2 - Setup and Operation |
| Page 3 - Conclusion |
| All Pages |
The DGL-4500 - A new wireless broadband router from D-Link which continues on from their original gigabit gaming
router, the DGL-4100 released in 2005, now with added Xtreme-N 300Mb/s wireless capability.
What is a Gaming Router?
D-Link’s original broadband gaming router, the DGL-4100 was more or less a typical broadband router which integrated a 4-port Gigabit switch instead of the 10/100 ports that most routers utilise, as well as protocols similar to QoS (Quality of Service) protocols called ‘GameFuel Priority’ by D-Link, to prioritise gaming traffic over everything else, to ensure you didn’t lag out when your flatmate or partner starts downloading something when you’re playing online.
The DGL-4500 takes up where the 4100 left off and brings the gaming router into the year 2008. The same 4-port Gigabit switch is still incorporated into the unit, however this time it’s also got a 300MB/s Wireless (Draft) N access point strapped along for the ride. GameFuel prioritisation is of course still included as well as a host of other advanced networking features you really wouldn’t expect in what is essentially a home router.
Features:
Aside from the aforementioned Gigabit Ethernet ports and high-speed Wireless-N networking, there’s a host of other features included in an attempt to justify the average AU$330 ($430 RRP) asking price, such as various QoS protocols, Access Controls, Web Filters and many advanced Firewall options. So as a router it’s got all the bases covered, there’s not much else on the market that will do more than this can do – for the price anyway.
On the unit itself, which is a nicely polished up glossy black box, we have a rather sizeable OLED display screen which flashes up a nice welcome screen when you first power on. It’s only a monochrome display (light-blue and black) but it’s extremely clear, vibrant and easy to read, despite using relatively small text most of the time.
Within this screen, which is navigated by two buttons at the front of the router, you can bring up a range of information about the device, such as current transfer speeds (separate sections for WiFi, LAN and Internet), connection status, time/date and view the system log from the router in real time. Basically if you have this in your bedroom, you can have the OLED screen display exactly what sites your flatmate is going to at the very second he goes there. So if you concerned about privacy, make sure you know where this thing is and who’s around when you’re looking at things you shouldn’t be.
Other than navigating the OLED screen (which turns off after 1 minute of inactivity no matter what you’re looking at – very annoying) there’s no way to monitor network activity, unlike most other routers which will have flashing LED’s indicating activity on both the WAN/LAN ports as well as the wireless connection. The DGL-4500 only has one light on the front of it, a bright blue power LED that doesn’t do anything but tell you the device is turned on. Some status lights for the LAN ports would have been nice, at the very least to be able to quickly see whether your cable is connected properly. Even a $20 switch includes this feature, so why can’t a $330 router?
On the back of the router, aside from the LAN and WAN ports, we have a USB2.0 port which serves no real purpose other than being able to plug in a flash drive to load preset wireless settings. It would have been much more useful if like some other routers on the market, you could use this port to plug in a USB hard drive to share it over the network, or in conjunction with a built in torrent client to download files. Sadly this is not to be, seems like a waste of a port really.
Setup:
While the DGL-4500 does have a lot of features trapped inside its little black box, it’s surprisingly easy to setup. By default, like most routers, it will automatically grab an IP address from your modem (if set to give out DHCP), and will give out IP addresses via DHCP. So in a basic fashion it will be working and get you onto the internet as soon as it’s plugged in.
The DGL-4500’s web interface handles all the other setup options and features, and if you’re not that confident with your networking skills then don’t sweat it, as just about everything you can change has a setup wizard included with it, from setting the Wireless Security to access controls and web filters, the router will guide you through everything step by step. For those who are confident with what they’re doing, you don’t HAVE to use the wizards, it can of course be done the old fashioned ‘manual’ way.
In Operation:
As we’ve just said the setup of the DGL-4500 is a piece of cake so you’ll be up and running in no time. Connecting to the router via one of its LAN ports is still my preferred option, and D-Link do make quite a big deal about it having Gigabit speed, but unless you have other computers on the network also connected as Gigabit speed and can take advantage of the speed for file transfers and such, then there’s no real advantage over a typical 10/100 speed router in terms on internet access speed. The port speed on a broadband router has almost no effect on either your download speeds or your ping times in games. Your internet connection type and speed will determine both those factors so long as your home network itself isn’t clogged with data and slowing you down.
And it’s that last point where the DGL-4500 is meant to shine, if your internet connection is being used by a few people it should prioritise gaming traffic above all else to keep your ping times low and packet loss at a minimum.
Sadly this is very difficult to test with internet servers, I had a game running with nothing else going through the router and getting ping times of about 15-20ms. I started a file downloading at full speed (150KB/s – only on a 1500kbps ADSL1 connection here at the office) and the game was ranging from 30-150ms+ with GameFuel disabled – so spiking quite badly. I enabled GameFuel with the same file downloading at the same speed, and the pings were still occasionally spiking, although I must admit game play did seem noticeably smoother with less jittering and packet loss, but the ping spikes were still there.
I enabled and disabled GameFuel several times and always connected to the same server and I’m surprised to say it did seem noticeably better with the GameFuel rules enabled (I’ll admit I didn’t think it would make any difference at all). It seems to only be of any use though if your internet connection is rather saturated, because if nothing else is using the connection, it’s going to be as good as it can be, GameFuel or no GameFuel. So if you generally game online with nothing else running, this router would be of very little to no use to you.
The wireless speed was quite impressive from the DGL-4500, just as good as the DAP-1353 Wireless-N access point I looked at earlier in the year. Excellent range and throughput speeds of around 3-4MB/s (that’s MegaBytes, not MegaBits), still nowhere near 300Mbps, but still way above what any normal 802.11g network could hope to accomplish (normal 802.11g network gives us about 1.6MB/s). The results were so similar I wouldn’t be surprised if exactly the same wireless hardware is in the DGL-4500 as is in the DAP-1353. It’s impressive none the less.
Conclusion:
The DGL-4500 is certainly a very capable router with a vast range of features that would put most home routers to shame, and for well over AU$300 you’d expect it to.
It will look great in any home and the OLED display screen adds a bit of geek factor to its appearance which I really like. The three rather thick heavy-duty aerials supplied as standard by D-Link tell you this thing is serious about performance, and it does deliver. The wireless performance is excellent, just as good as the dedicated Wireless-N access point DAP-1353 we tested earlier and the Gigabit Ethernet ports are a great inclusion if you’re going to use this as a switch between local computers.
The rather high asking price means this is never going to be a volume seller for D-Link unlike like their old faithful DI-624, instead it will cater to a niche market who are willing to pay to ensure they have reliable gaming performance. You must remember though, that’s it’s not a 100% guarantee you’ll never have lag, firstly due to the nature of the internet itself it just can’t be guaranteed, and also in our own testing while it did make a noticeable and worthwhile improvement, it still isn’t perfect and your ping times will still increase if your connection is saturated, there’s no way around that.
Overall it’s a great router with some really excellent routing/firewall features, and the wireless is top rate, however due to its price would only recommend it if you need the best.
OzHardware Rating – 8.5/10
This Product can be purchased online at www.techbuy.com.au (Direct Link)
