Belkin Play Max Wireless Modem Router N600 F7D4401zb for BSNL Internet "Against DGND3700"

I always had a soft spot for NETGEAR after my WGT624 experience and when i upgraded to BSNL internet i bought a state of the art DGND3300 in 2009 which had a ADSL modem integrated. Well it started acting very weird about a month back "Connectivity/Speed/Login/Stability issues" and finally died a week back
<


DGND3300 was not a great router at all, my WGT624 is still alive & kicking. It has limitations in dual band and since the LAN ports are not gigabit the speed on LAN was limited. A bit sad i did not buy DgN3500 instead of the DGND3300 since it had Gigabit ethernet.

Now i had to buy a new router with a integrated modem for BSNL "Keeping that cheap BSNL modem and another router did not look productive or safe". NETGEAR seems like a bad choice after the relatively short life DGND3300 had but still i gave the DGND3700 a look.

Here are the modem+router i had a look at:-

1. Linksys X3000 Advanced Wireless-N ADSL2+ Modem Router @ Rs.10100

2. NETGEAR N600 DGND3700 ADSL2+ Modem Router @ Rs.11200

3. BELKIN N600 DB Wireless Dual-Band N+ Modem Router @ Rs.8400

4. BELKIN N600 HD Play Max Wireless Modem Router @ Rs.9300

Note- Bufflo and ASUS have useless ADSL+Routers
<


I almost bought the X3000 after the dealer gave me a demo but my laptop could not detect the 5Ghz band from the X3000. Seems i had some confusion and that X3000 does not support 5Ghz at all. Well X3000 was off the list.

Then came the DGND3700 it performed very very well over all range was impressive from the dealers shop. The transfer speed was also quite good and overall it seemed like my preffered choice. The price did bite me a bit.

The BELKIN N600 DB had a very good design but it did not have Gigabit LAN and had only 1 USB port where as the DGND3700 had 2 USB ports, so this was out of the race.

BELKIN N600 HD was a very good suprise at just Rs.900 more than the other BELKIN. It has almost everything the DGND3700 has and is almost Rs.2000 less. It had a bit less range and was a bit slower in the tests than the DGND3700 but not by a lot.

The 3year warranty and the Rs.2000 difference made a strong case for the Belkin product. The reviews i read online for the Play Max did not seems good at all but i did not experience any issues like the ones noted online maybe because it had the latest firmware.

Both DGND3300 and BELKIN N600 HD run hot on dual band and i am happy that the N600 HD has a single LED, after DGND3300's huge blue eye it looks like a good alternative. Just remember to take off the bottom stand they stop air reaching the grill's.

[attachment=12280:2012_3_14_16_16_59_376000.jpg]

[attachment=12281:2012_3_14_16_17_18_1000.jpg]

[attachment=12282:2012_3_14_16_17_30_603125.jpg]

[attachment=12283:2012_3_14_16_18_52_237000.jpg]

[attachment=12284:2012_3_14_16_23_44_942125.jpg]

[attachment=12285:2012_3_14_16_24_0_735125.jpg]

[attachment=12286:2012_3_14_16_40_13_566000.jpg]
 

Attachments

  • 2012_3_14_16_16_59_376000.jpg
    2012_3_14_16_16_59_376000.jpg
    91.7 KB · Views: 228
  • 2012_3_14_16_17_18_1000.jpg
    2012_3_14_16_17_18_1000.jpg
    80.1 KB · Views: 198
  • 2012_3_14_16_17_30_603125.jpg
    2012_3_14_16_17_30_603125.jpg
    96.2 KB · Views: 179
  • 2012_3_14_16_18_52_237000.jpg
    2012_3_14_16_18_52_237000.jpg
    125.7 KB · Views: 199
  • 2012_3_14_16_23_44_942125.jpg
    2012_3_14_16_23_44_942125.jpg
    110.1 KB · Views: 194
  • 2012_3_14_16_24_0_735125.jpg
    2012_3_14_16_24_0_735125.jpg
    101.2 KB · Views: 188
  • 2012_3_14_16_40_13_566000.jpg
    2012_3_14_16_40_13_566000.jpg
    77.5 KB · Views: 393
Click to expand...
hi, congrats for new router. Can you share real life transfer speeds between two gigabit machines using ur router and also usb hdd copying speeds?
 
The following are results of copying 8.12 GB (8,719,985,075 bytes) MKV file from computer to laptop via the Gigabit port:

1. 84-91MB/sec according to windows 7 transfer window "Computer to Laptop"

2. 80-87MB/sec according to windows 7 transfer window "Laptop to Computer"

The following are results of copying 8.12 GB (8,719,985,075 bytes) MKV file from a USB 16GB Pendrive to laptop:

1. 4-5MB/sec Write

2. 4-6MB/sec Read

"Similar read/write speeds may mean the Pendrive is a bottleneck but its still good enough to stream 1080P movies upto 40Mbps"

The following are results of copying 8.12 GB (8,719,985,075 bytes) MKV file from computer to laptop via WiFi N 2.4Ghz 40Mhz:

1. 9-12MB/sec according to windows 7 transfer window "Computer to Laptop"

2. 9-12MB/sec according to windows 7 transfer window "Laptop to Computer"

The following are results of copying 8.12 GB (8,719,985,075 bytes) MKV file from computer to laptop via WiFi N 5Ghz 40Mhz:

1. 9-10MB/sec according to windows 7 transfer window "Computer to Laptop"

2. 9-10MB/sec according to windows 7 transfer window "Laptop to Computer"

5Ghz 40Mhz seems slower than i had expected compared to 2.4Ghz 40Mhz, i will rerun the test using my friends NETGEAR DGND3700 in a day or two.
 
UPDATE: Tested the NETGEAR DGND3700 for Gigabit, 5Ghz 40Mhz and 2.4Ghz 40Mhz and following are the results:

The following are results of copying 8.12 GB (8,719,985,075 bytes) MKV file from computer to laptop via the Gigabit port:

1. 87-100MB/sec according to windows 7 transfer window "Computer to Laptop"

2. 85-99MB/sec according to windows 7 transfer window "Laptop to Computer"

The following are results of copying 8.12 GB (8,719,985,075 bytes) MKV file from computer to laptop via WiFi N 2.4Ghz 40Mhz:

1. 10-12MB/sec according to windows 7 transfer window "Computer to Laptop"

2. 9-12MB/sec according to windows 7 transfer window "Laptop to Computer"

The following are results of copying 8.12 GB (8,719,985,075 bytes) MKV file from computer to laptop via WiFi N 5Ghz 40Mhz:

1. 9-13MB/sec according to windows 7 transfer window "Computer to Laptop"

2. 10-12MB/sec according to windows 7 transfer window "Laptop to Computer"

The results for 2.4Ghz 40Mhz is similar to the Play Max at the same, at Gigabit transfer and 5Ghz 40Mhz the story changes DGND3700 is a bit faster. But is it enough to pay Rs.2000 more and also suffer a reduction in warranty i think not.

Note: At max load "dual mode" DGND3700 was almost as hot as the Play Max but the heat was distributed better than the Play Max. The wifi off switch is very handy on the DGND3700 for the Play Max you need to use the router login
<
 
sorry for the late reply. Forgot about my request here. Credits for the hard work of extra testing. Nice speeds on gigabit network there, never new its real world speeds. So thanks for the updates.
 
Back
Top