Intellinet Wireless 450N Dual-Band Gigabit Router

Intellinet's Wireless 450 Dual-Band Router (model 524988) has a dated look compared to sleeker, newer dual-bands on the market offered from more well-known networking companies like Cisco and Netgear. However, it's considerably cheaper than those dual-bands at $110 street price. It offers decent performance at the 5 GHz band and okay performance at 2.4 GHz. Because it can serve as more than a router (it can act as a bridge, access point, and WDS repeater) it's a router that will be most likely embraced by advanced users.

Hardware and Design
The router is a lightweight, white plastic rectangular box with Intellinet's logo in the center at the top. The logo is a large, raised red and white checkmark. The logo on the white plastic case is so large and colorful that the device almost looks like a toy.?
The front panel has several LEDs representing activity of? each radio band, and the WAN and LAN ports.? The rear panel has a radio off and on toggle switch, a button that serves for rests and connecting clients via WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup), a WAN port, and four LAN ports.

The 5 GHz radio uses the Ralink RT3883 chipset and is a 3x3 MIMO configuration. Unlike newer routers which are increasingly coming to market with internal antennas, the Intellinet router has three external fixed-dipole antennas with 3 dBi gain each. The 2.4 GHz radio uses the Ralink RT3092 chipset and is a 2x2 MIMO configuration. Internal specs include a 500 MHz MIPS CPU, 8MB Flash memory, and 64MB DDR2 RAM.

Setup
This router does not have the smooth and easy wireless setup of Cisco Linksys E-series line of routers. It's also not as user-friendly as the newest Netgear routers' setup process It's what I like to call a "traditional" setup which requires using a computer hard wired to the router to setup the router.

A CD ships with the router, but there is no setup software. The CD has an autorun file which opens up to a splashscreen with a link for "software and driver installation." Clicking that link pulls up a text file that reads, "The installation does not require and driver or installation software. Refer to the user manual on the CD for instructions." I find this amusing, yet understand that some users would find this frustrating. It's unimpressive that Intellinet would opt to have a screen with a setup link that only opens a text file stating there is no automated setup process.

That's not to say there is no help, however. There is a user manual on the CD and a quick install insert, both of which will walk you through properly connecting the router in a network and then instructs you to go to a web browser to access the management console (the username and password to access is provided). Most tech-savvy users will quickly figure out the only away to really setup the router is through its browser-based console. This isn't a router that handholds users through setup like the Cisco Linksys E series. So if you are not technically proficient with routers and not particularly interested in becoming so, you may be better off splurging for the more expensive Cisco Linksys, Netgear or Belkin lines which have a much more user-friendly setup.

Once you're in the interface, there are a few options: Quick setup, general setup, status, and tools. Quick setup takes you through the essential steps to get the router up and running.

Configuration
The Intellinet router supports WMM (Wi-Fi Multimedia), WEP, WPA/WPA2 TKIP and AES. Setting up wireless on both bands is a straightforward process. I did notice you can't set up the 5 GHz band at N to only use a 40 MHz channel width, only ?Auto 20/40?. Being able to set the 5 GHz band to only use a 40 MHz channel can in many cases, maximize the robustness of the 5 GHz band. Newer dual-band routers (the Cisco Linksys E43200 for instance) will allow you to set the 5GHz to only use the 40 MHz channel.

You aren't given that option with this router. Not much of a worry, as most users can have both bands auto negotiate the channel width and leave the setting as "Auto 20/40 MHz."

It does offer several capabilities such as virtual server, port forwarding, DMZ. Dynamic DNS,and VPN pass-through. QoS is enabled with a click of a checkbox. With it, users can select the total amount of Kbps for download and upload bandwidth from a drop-down menu. Rules can be created to prioritize traffic.

It's also possible to disable NAT, a needed feature if you are running the device in a mode other than as a router. The router also supports MAC and IP address filtering. MAC filter deny rules took immediate effect in blocking a client's access to the router during testing.

Currently, this router offers no IPv6 support, but Intellinet representatives state that it will be supported with a new firmware release in May.

There are no parental controls but there is URL blocking which works efficiently. Security features in addition to a firewall include enabling the prevention of DoS attacks including ping of death and port scanning. When I had the prevent port scanning feature enabled I was unable to use Radmin port scan to get information about ports on a client connected to the router?a good thing, so security works.

The interface's look is overall lackluster, but it's efficient and the settings work fine. I did find one aspect of working within the interface absolutely maddening: changing any settings requires sitting through a 40-second reboot of the router. I have not seen such a consistent need to a reboot and such a long reboot on any other router I've tested.

ben gibbard