Sitecom 300N XR Wireless router reviewed by MetkuMods

Sitecom 300N XR

Network gaming without wires

Author:	Toni 'HaoKi' Siik
Published:	04.02.2009
Manufacturer:	Sitecom
Product Group:	Network
In English Suomeksi

Use

To begin with, I downloaded and installed the latest firmware for the router, as the user-interface has been improved from the original. Setting up the router may be as easy as just plugging in the router's power and the necessary wan-cable etc. However the router's settings cover just about everything you may need.

The first page of the settings covers the device information etc.. You can find all the logs and statistics there. Then we have the basic wizard-function that helps you setup the device as you like. There really is nothing special about them and they look like just about every other router that I've seen in the past.

The basic tab of the router settings has all of the more accurate options for the network, wireless and WAN. In addition you have your advanced tabs that have some more settings that you may or may not have to use.

The network settings are fairly straight forward, and the same trend continues on with the Wireless settings. This router supports the latest 802.11n wireless-mode with security settings up to WPA2-Enterprise and everything in between. The WPS-button (Wi-Fi Protected Setup) makes setting up protected wireless connections as easy as pushing a couple of buttons. For this feature to work though, the adapter has to support WPS.

Sitecom 300N XR

Now we get to the page that has the most interesting features of the whole router. The router uses a technology called the StreamEngine that should be able to cut down our ping even if the connection is under load. The whole system depends on the routers ability to sort out the packages that are going through the router, and putting them into prioritized order. This means that the packages that belong to for example, games are prioritized so that the pings should stay lower. Packages of web-browsers and other clients can be put further back inline as they do not depend on latencies that often. For the router to achieve the desired effect, it has to have quite a lot of punch behind it, as it has to classify each package that goes through the router.

Well how well does the StreamEngine work then? To be honest, it does cut down latencies of games by quite a lot when the connection is highly loaded, but just like with other comparable systems, the latencies are still too high for FPS-games. The latencies are lowered to around 200-300 which is still too high to be playable. However if you play MMORPG or RTS-games, you might be able to cope with the slightly higher ping.

The StreamEngine does work much better than the older comparable system that I had in my old router. It also really is clear that the Sitecom router has some umpf behind it, as the unit heats up considerably when the traffic shaping is enabled. It's really recommendable that the router is placed so that air cools the unit down.

Despite the small issues with the StreamEngine, the router itself does offer the users an extensive range of tools and settings to play around with. In addition to the basic settings you can, for example, setup a dynamic DNS for the router, fine-tune the NAT and firewall that is included in the router etc. Really everything you may need.

Conclusion

PROS

StreamEngine (it works...)

Looks

Features

Gigabit-LAN and N-Draft WLAN

CONS

StreamEngine (...but not well enough)

Silver Award!

Inside the shiny exterior really does lie a capable router that has just about every feature a user may need. The StreamEngine however, doesn't live up to all of the expectations that I had for this router, but it does work at least at some level. The gamer crowd will probably love the combo of the gigabit LAN and n-draft WLAN. They are still not that common in most routers. All in all the Sitecom 300N XR, is a nice router with some more special features, which may or may not be useful to you. If you need a nice router that has both Gigabit LAN and N-Draft WLAN, this router is one that you should consider.