US Robotics SureConnect ADSL

Some products are easy to review, and you know almost immediately whether they’ll be good or bad. This one is less straightforward. Take the physical design, for instance. It’s bulky so there’s no wall-mount option, and the all-black design won’t blend in with most PCs. Yet on the other hand it conveniently has two detachable antenna, and the rare inclusion of a power switch is welcome, too. Then there’s the documentation. It looks impressive at first – a full printed book – but only 16 pages are in English.

Fortunately, the setup process is the easiest here for beginners, although experienced users may find themselves frustrated at times. Furthermore, there’s no obvious way to avoid it and jump right in with your own preferences.

Still, once the EasyConfigurator is complete you’ll be able to use the browser-based setup process. Of course that’s when you discover that the features are a little basic. There are some good points (inbound and outbound IP filtering, a wireless bridge mode, dynamic DNS support for multiple providers), but they’re outnumbered by the advanced features that have been left out (SNMP, URL and content filtering, scheduling and more). Factor in the average 54g performance (18.5Mbps) and it’s hard to recommend the SureConnect, especially at this price.