The Best Product Myth

[vnangia]

"Technology simply moves too fast and product lifecycles are measured in months, not years. If your needs really change that much, there will be new products with better performance for the same or less money."

So ... is it just me or is there still no real replacement to the DIR-655?

Seriously, D-Link and Netgear at least seem to be on a 3-year cycle or thereabouts for their N hardware !

 

[thiggins]

Granted, D-Link isn't the greatest example of rate of product introduction. But the general statement holds.

 

[danull]

"So there is no way that I can judge a product's long term reliability and neither can you from simply reading reviews."

I agree that this statement in the article is true when considering reviews by professional reviewers, but I think user reviews tend to reflect a longer-term experience with a product and are the best available information to find out about a product's reliability.

As you stated in the article, user reviews can't always be trusted because of those seeking revenge or those who are using the product incorrectly or those who are trolling or those who were running on firmware which has since been repaired - but in my opinion there is still no better way to determine a product's reliability before buying it.

There is nothing more important to me than reliability, and so looking at user reviews (esp Amazon's) is part of any purchasing cycle for me. I watch out for too-few-reviews and reviews dominated by people participating in Amazon's VINE program (I think a VINE reviewer is less likely to post a negative review, that they became a VINE reviewer because the number of helpful votes received over time, and that a history of positive reviews garners more helpful votes in the long run).... anyway, this process of using user reviews to determine what I want to purchase has been working out for me!

Thanks for your website! As stated above I take the reviews with a grain of salt, but love it for the "news" and performance articles.

 

[thiggins]

I should clarify. I meant any review that is based on a few hours or even days of use can't be used to determine product long-term reliability.

 

[ReclaiMe]

Actually, this is even worse with hard drives and storage devices. You'd expect your NAS to work fine at least for a couple of years. However, by the time real-life reliability information becomes available, identifying possible weak spots, like QNAP's power supply units, it is already too late. The product is most likely at the bottom of the performance spectrum, or just plain end-of-life. So, in storage there is no data on real-life reliability unless you are OK with the hardware which is one or two generations old.

 

[stevech]

I should clarify. I meant any review that is based on a few hours or even days of use can't be used to determine product long-term reliability.

There's also the issue of sample size, in terms of hardware quality.

 

[Razor512]

It depends on your needs, if your network is largely wired and the wireless clients are mostly just surfing the web, then a cheap gigabit router with 802.11g or N150 will be enough for most people even today.

pretty much all gigabit routers provide the same LAN to LAN performance.

While WAN performance can vary, unless you are using a network like google fiber, the WAN performance will not be a problem for most people.

Even with 802.11ac if you look at the benchmarks on this site, it does not even come close to gigabit LAN performance, so you are not likely to be transferring 5 TB of data across the network via wifi.

And if you need to stream 1080p content then it is important to understand that you do not need N450 or ac1300 to do it. (Most HD streaming over a LAN uses around 10-13mbit/s and bluray content may pull upwards of 30+mbit/s And unless you are running multiple bluray streams, even basic 802.11n networks will handle it just fine.

The only thing I can see a person who likes streaming HD content over wifi, is a dual band router (simply because you can have the streaming device on either the 2.4GHz or 5GHz band (does not matter which, both offer enough performance), then using the other band for general web usage to prevent problems with the HD stream.

For a while, I used a WRT54GL and a cheap gigabit switch, before upgrading to a WNR3500l which offers more than enough performance for my LAN needs and for supporting my verizon fios connection (PS if you move to fios, have the tech install the ethernet connection, if you do not request it, they will have the ONT use coax and you will have to run your own ethernet (the crap verizon router can then be set as a moca to ethernet bridge and connected to your new not crap router.

 

[stevech]

we've revived a fairly old thread here, but...

The only thing I can see a person who likes streaming HD content over wifi, is a dual band router (simply because you can have the streaming device on either the 2.4GHz or 5GHz band (does not matter which, both offer enough performance), then using the other band for general web usage to prevent problems with the HD stream.

Alternatively to a dual band router just to do HD streaming in one band and routine web surfing in the other band.... You can do the same, if so inclined to segregate like that, by using two same-band routers and choose channels that don't overlap.

But in either case, you don't "own the band".. in an urban area. You're time-sharing channels with neighbors - who hopefully don't stream HD on or near your chosen channels.

The term "gigabit router" has always irked me. It was, I say, a marketing trick to get non-geeks to think the wireless is super-fast. Indeed any 10/100 (not gigabit LAN) 11g or 11n router, plus a $25 gigabit switch, is equivalent, and you don't pay a premium for a built-in gigabit Ethernet switch.

For any WiFi passing room to room, I submit that HD1080i much less 1080p will always be disappointing if done on WiFi, as interference and spectrum overloading comes and goes. Hence, MoCA and HomePlug.

 

[sfx2000]

It's the Zombie thread - it wants our BRAAAIINNNSSS!

LOL...

Seriously though - the best product is the one that meets needs and requirements.

I'm partial these days - Gigabit Ethernet is a plus if you have other ethernet devices that support GIGe. More broadband modems now days, esp. in areas where the ISP's offer DOCSIS 3.0, there's enough bandwidth there to saturate a 100BaseT WAN port.

For the LAN side - more gear these days support 1000BaseT out of the box - so future-proof yourself here...

As for WiFi - 802.11N three-stream is a plus - not just for bandwidth, but also capacity and range (even if you're using 2-steam gear, a 3-stream AP is always in 3-stream at the RF level, and this is Gain - range and capacity).

Dual-Band - becoming more important as more dual-band gear ships...

As far as 802.11ac - it's promising, but like 802.11 pre-draft N - unless you have a serious requirement, I'd wait a bit for the second generation of silicon to come out once the spec is formally released... if I recall as of today's date (01/24/13) - it's still in draft - solid perhaps, but it's more like Turbo-N...