| Belkin N1 Vision Wireless Router (F5D8232-4) |
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Model: F5D8232-4
Brand: Belkin
Manufacturer: Belkin Components
Average Rating: 
(submit your review here)
Total Reviews: 46
Form factor: External
Hardware platform: PC
Data link protocol: Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, IEEE 802.11n (draft), IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g
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| Features: |
Interactive Status Display shows your network's broadband speed, computer bandwidth usage, the status of connected network devices, and more.
Plug-and-Play CD-less setup
Easy Security Setup with support for Wi-Fi Protected Setup and Multiple SSID
802.11n draft 2.0 compatible - 3x3 radio design provides excellent speeds and complete wireless coverage
4 Gigabit Ports |
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| Description: |
| Packaged in a new sleek and sophisticated design, N1 Vision offers the best in networking performance with its wireless (up to) 802.11n 3x3 radio design and wired gigabit ports. The N1 Vision wireless router continues Belkin's commitment in providing the best user experience in the home market through its Plug-and-Play "CD-less" installation and simple network security setup. |
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| User Reviews (46 total): |
Page 1 2 3 of Total 3 Pages
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Great Reception!, March 18, 2008
By user
I previously had a wireless router, but had a lot of problems with it. There are a lot of people in my neigborhood with wireless routers and I was getting interference with my other router. I thought this Belkin, with all of its information screens, would help me determine where the problem was. This unit is great! I have not had any problems with it at all...I would definitely reccommend this router. My brother, who is in the computer field, was also impressed with the Belkin. It may be a little more money, but it is definitely worth it as this is a great working and looking router.
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Great Product, March 11, 2008
By user (New Jersey, USA)
Just a great product, easy to install, just plug in the wires and the Belkin N1 Vision does the complete set-up for you. This N1 Vision takes all the guess work out of setting up a wireless router. You don't even have to install the set-up CD that comes with the unit. If you're a novice like me you will appreciate this feature best of all. The screen displays all the systems (and much more) that are running on your network; giving the names of the computers that are online. Other makes/models give you those flashing lights, which I think most of us don't understand. I hooked this router to my computer (running cable) then to my daughter's computer using the old slow AOL phone modem. Installed the Belkin N1 wireless USB adapter to her computer and she is now downloading/uploading at lightning speed. If you're in the market for a home network system this is the way to go, easy to install, no configuration to figure out, just plug in and go. Just remember what ever router you purchase they come in various speeds and performance. The "G" - "G+" - "N" - "N-1". The "G+" and above come with the new technology called NIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) based on the 802.11 draft and the N-1 technology appears to be the best on the market which enables multiple receivers to send and receive data using intelligent multiplexing techniques. One last advantage of the N-1 vision router, it has a range of 1,600 feet, just think of the advantages of this feature alone. I would recommend the Belkin N1 Vision to all with no reservations.
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OK for beginners, poor mfgr tech support, March 8, 2008
By user (Seattle, WA USA)
I purchased this product to replace a Belking "Pre-N" router (which is Belkin's way of saying it's a wireless-G just like everyone else has) that was no longer functioning well.
This unit comes with instructions to plug in the unit, type in an address in your browser's address bar and then follow the instructions to set it up. I followed the instructions in detail and they didn't work. When I attempted to follow the automated setup the router would freeze up, restart, close the internet connection and so forth. Each time it would freeze or close the internet connection either it would re-start the setup procedures or it would simply close the internet connection (thus forcing me to restart the setup procedures manually). Finally, I skipped the auto setup, typed in the IP address of the router in the address field and manually set it up.
I wanted to use WPA security instead of WEP due to the increased security. I have five computers and they all support bot security types. All but one of the computers didn't connect to the router consistently with the WPA security. Most would connect, then restart the connection repeatedly. It became apparent that the router had an issue communicating, or that there was some sort ofa compatibility issue
Belkin advertises that this unit connects at up to 300 Mbps. I have a brand new Dell laptop with a Wireless-N card and it would only connect to the router at a maximum speed of 164 Mbps (this is good compared to 54 Mbps, which is hat my Wireless-G router gave me, but it's still not 300). After a few hours though I began connecting at only 48 Mbps or even lower, despite not having made any changes to the router. I tried several locations in my home, restarted the router several times and nothing helped. I contacted Belkin tech support and their only response was to change the channel (which had previously been on Auto). I tried every channel and each had similirly poor results.
I checked the router's pre-loaded firmware and found that it was not up to date. Apparently, according to Belkin's website, the firmware is two or three years old. I was very surprised they are sending out new equpiment with such old firmware. There have been two firmware updates and neither has been loaded into their routers. I downloaded new firmware and the router's "upload" and "browse" buttons on the update firmware page were disabled, giving me no way to update the firmware. I followed the update firmware instructions three times and got the same result so I know I was doing it right. I contacted tech support and got no response.
Belkin advertises this as having a range of up to 1600 feet with ideal conditions. I can't comment on the range except to say that we had full signal from our master bedroom, which only had about 3 bars out of 5 with our Wireless-G router. That's abut the only good thing and I can't verify it. My suspicion is that this is range was probably obtained in an open field or something with no walls and with perfect weather and atmospheric conditions. I'm sure the stars were aligned and the Belkin techs consuled their palm reader to verify the location and time of day.
I did find the router's external display to be unique and nice looking. Some reviewers have found this useful. Unfortunately, my router is usually in an office, closet or someplace out of the way so the display isn't very practical for me. The buttons on the display are also hard to push. I also got relatively clear audio with Skype, which wasn't possible with my Wireless-G router.
Overall, this router doesn't meet my expectations or what I understood from the advertisement for speed, security, connectivity, compatibility or utility.
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High Priced Garbage, February 29, 2008
By user (Oak Park, Il USA)
I purchased this N-1 Vision router to replace my Belkin pre-N router because it advertised up to gigabit speeds. The N-1 worked 'OK' for a few weeks. I say OK because it kept cutting out on my wireless laptop and desktop. Finally it choked completely. Although my systems could both 'see' the router and the very high signal strength, neither system would connect to the router.
I called Belkin twice... Each CSR ran me through the same 'fix' to no avail. After wasting 1/2 a day attempting to get this pig to work Belkin 'escalated' my trouble ticket to 2nd tier support.
Instead I provided my own 2nd tier support by ripping out the N-1 and re-installing my pre-N. In ten minutes, three wireline and 2 wireless computers were up and running on the internet without issue.
Save your money and get something that actually works...
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so far so good., February 29, 2008
By user (Fort Worth, Tx USA)
Well, my WRT54G finally lost the ability to connect to the internet. I dunno what happened, since local network traffic is still fine. Anyway, I decided to make sure it was the router by purchasing a new one. I chose the N vision , mostly because of the status screen, despite the sad, sad throughput ratings. I thought the throughput meters were a cool idea, but I wish they were a little more interesting to watch than they turn out to be, since the graphical portion of the meter does not seem to represent an actual percentage of the total broadband or network capacity, which would have been nice. I've already planned to return it to CC and buy a D-Link 4500 Xtreme as soon as I finish writing this review. I think the 4500 looks cooler and sleeker anyway.
Ciao!
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AWESOME router!, February 27, 2008
By user (Louisville, KY)
This router replaced my D-Link DI-514, which was 802.11b. I wanted at least a 802.11g with hopes to go to N someday. Main hopes was to speed up connectivity to my work's VPN especially since all my PC's have wireless G cards. More on the VPN in a moment.
When I found this router, I fell in love, plus the coolness factor of the display sold me.
It was a breeze to setup, even though I didn't use the built in "wizard". I've had network experience in the past, so it didn't bother me to do it the "hard" way. I was able to update the pc's and laptops to use this router equally as painlessly. Currently I have running on this router: Vista pc, XP pc, XP laptop, Macbook, iMac, PS3, PSP, and Nintendo DS. All were very simple to get working with this router.
Now for the "bad" but fixable problem. It would NOT allow me to communicate via VPN to my corporate network using the Nortel Contivity client as I was able to do with my D-Link. I e-mailed Belkin tech support and they said: "Problem solved in version 1.00.13 of the firmware, available from the Belkin UK Support Site."
I updated to this firmware version and the VPN is working PERFECT! Thanks Belkin!
People have complained about Belkin tech support, but I was able to get my VPN working within two days of contacting them via e-mail. I'm sure a phone call might have had a quicker resolution, but it wasn't a top priority to get the VPN working asap.
Yeah, this router is a bit pricey, but it works well, and it sure is cool! I haven't tested the range yet, but I rarely use my network outside of my house anyway.
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Easy to set up and use, display a nice bonus, February 24, 2008
By user (S.F. Bay Area)
Yes, the buttons on the front are awful. I suspected other reviewers were being picky about it, but alas, the buttons are pathetic. However, I typically set the display for one particular view (i.e. upload/download speed) and leave it, so this is not a big issue for me. As an average user, I can't comment on the technical aspects of the unit, but have found that it was easy to set up and begin using.
So far (few months now) it has been extremely reliable and has not dropped a connection yet. I have found that my wireless range has dropped compared to the previous router (Netgear WNR854T) but only with one computer that has poor reception to begin with. Also, a WARNING to anyone reading this who might be considering the purchase of the aforementioned Netgear router: RUN! Don't buy it! Mine broke maybe 6 months after I bought it, and it constantly dropped connections and required a reset. After it died (no function, just green power LED and that was it) I found out this is a common problem for this model. For what it's worth my parents have had two Netgear routers that also died in a relatively short amount of time. I have hope that this Belkin will outlast the Netgear.
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False Advertising...., February 20, 2008
By user (Boston, MA)
Both Belkin's product description page and the box that it comes in say that this item supports IPSec passthrough. After struggling with every setting on the router and two firmware updates I was unable to get this router to allow a connection to my company's Cisco IPSec VPN. I contacted Belkin support and the response I received was "We are sorry to let you know that the router will not support IPSec pass-through traffic, so it is not enabled in the router."
I am ATTEMPTING to get a refund from Belkin but so far they are being supremely unhelpful.
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Excellent but disappointing tech support, February 19, 2008
By user (Bronx, NY United States)
By far the fastest wireless router I have worked with. Paired with the Belkin USB N1 adapter, I clock a consistent 300mbps. Setup is a breeze. This maybe a little biased since I am a rather experienced network admin but by all count since I don't have to manually configure anything, any layman should be able to setup within 10 minutes.
What is disappointing is that I wrote Belkin tech support and also posted on their support site a question, received an acknowledgement and a "canned" email stating someone will get back to me within 72 hours. That was over ten days ago.. still no response.
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Brillant, February 2, 2008
By user (Los Angeles, CA)
Well packaged and consumer user friendly, took a lesson from Apple. Extremely easy to set up, menus on router VERY user efficient. Works extremely well in PC/Mac user home. Range of signal sets a new standard. Previously purchased Netgear newest and greatest, very disappointed. Belkin got it right on this one.
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Well worth it!, January 31, 2008
By user (Scotch Plains, NJ United States)
The ease of setup is amazing! I have several devices that can access a wi-fi router and all of them were amazingly simple to setup. TRULY a plug and play device that is as powerful in options as it is easy to set up.
If you considering a wi-fi router this one is well worth it.
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Set it up at a friend's house - complete success, January 23, 2008
By user (San Diego, CA United States)
I chose this router when establishing a wireless network for a non-technophile friend. One big wrinkle in getting his network established, was that his father was very attached to his external 56k modem and its blinking lights which indicated network performance. The lack of that level of feedback had been standing in the way of his conversion to modern networking for years.
When I chose the Vision router, not only was his father sold on it right away, but the system itself was blindingly fast. It scored, over wireless, a ~7300k/s download speed via their cable modem (ISP: Roadrunner, in San Diego) as measured by broadbandreports.com. Speed on the internal, gigabit network was also excellent.
I haven't heard anything but positive reports out of them about the router. I will, however, say that we selected all Belkin interface cards, so I can't say how performance would be on a mixed network.
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No security w/ iMac, January 21, 2008
By user
No good for a MAC. The Belkin N1 Vision router works really well and fast IF the SECURITY is DISABLED. Once security is turned on the download speed dropped 95% from 4800 kb to 156 kb. Upload speeds were 450 kb. I have called technical support several times have a reference number. They would not transfer me to level 2 and either hung up on me or put me back into the telephone call system which meant another 20 min wait.
If you have a Mac don't get one!!! It works well for Windows. This one will be on eBay soon. Four stars for PC... Zero stars for Mac network
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Solid N performance, flashy display, January 21, 2008
By user
I just replaced my Linksys WRT54G with the Belkin N1. I did so because I thought the Linksys was losing range after my home notebook PC routinely dropped its connection speed. Turns out it's my computer's wireless card that's having trouble, but I'm still glad I made the leap to N.
Although I can't comment on true N speeds (still need a N card for my PC), the Belkin N1 plays nicely with all of the Wireless G products in the house (3 notebook PCs, a PS3 and a Linksys Skype phone).
The best features of the router were:
1. Nearly instant setup. Just plug the Belkin N1 into your cable modem and to a PC. Fire up your browser and the setup screen should pop up automatically. If not, just type "routersetup" and away you go. The UI and entire experience is completely 100% better than the WRT54G. No typing in "192.168.1.blah" to get into the setup screen, which many users will find handy.
2. Solid connection speeds
3. Nice design. Compare this router to some of the original N routers released by Linksys, all of which looked like rejects from the Soviet space program circa 1982. The design is so nice that most people wouldn't mind having this sit right on the desk. That's the reason I suppose they included the info screen...which brings me to the one letdown...
The screen itself is nice. There is all kinds of useful info displayed. I suspect that most people have their router on a shelf or somewhere else out of the way, which almost negates the usefulness of the information. The N1 sits about 5 feet from my desk and I can't read it from there, so if I want to check out my upload/download speeds I need to get up and take a look. The most frustrating part of the N1 is the danged navigation buttons. Too much rubber makes it very difficult to navigate the many display options.
Overall, though, this seems like a great option for anyone ready to start transitioning to the high-speed world of Wireless-N.
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Belkin N1 Vision Wireless Router FD58232-4, January 20, 2008
By user (SF, CA, USA)
I had some reservations when I bought this router based upon mixed reviews, but it turned out that this router was a breeze to setup.
Firmware upgrade was applied first out of the box and then I followed previous advice and set it up manually. All pretty logical.
VPN access (PPP) works fine in wired and all wireless modes.
Signal strength is very good (much better than reviews were suggesting) over a length of 80 to 100 feet and on floors above and below router location in our home.
Guest Access is a nice convenience. This was the one area where I needed some help from Belkin because even though enabled it wasn't visible at first. Belkin support were fast and convenient to get through to. Changing the SSID wireless channel from 'Auto' to a specific channel (11 in my case) fixed the problem.
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Fantastic and easy to use., January 14, 2008
By user (Midwest, US)
I am very happy with the Belkin N1 wireless router. It has great range and was easy to set up. Cannot speak for the technologically challenged that could not get theirs to work but I had zero difficulties with mine.
Up and running in less than 10 minutes. I would highly advise this product.
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Neat Features, December 31, 2007
By user (La Mesa, CA)
N1 Vision Wireless Router With Status Display
I'm a guy swept away by cool features ... I only picked it up off the shelf to look at it becuase of the LCD display. Its a really convinient way of getting WAN/LAN statistics on the fly and without logging in.
I got online within 10 minutes using the manual setup. I'm personally not one for wizards, I personally think I'm smarter than the products I purchase.. :) I got right online with all of my machines except my roomate has an archaic notebook with an 802.11a card who couldnt even see the router. Thankfully I got him a Airlink101 N PCMCIA card ... problem solved.
It has a Guest SSID which I think is probibly the best idea yet. It allows you to parallel configure an SSID / WPA passkey that allows internet access but no local file access. WOW!
This is a big one for me but, the AC/DC Transformer takes up 1 plug space... with no brick! Its similar to many of the cell phone charger plugs used today.
All in all its a 6/6 stars but there are 2 things that make it a little unfrendly.
First off it takes a good chunk of space up on my shelf, which made replacing my old unit quite a hastle.
Secondly the buttons used for Navigating the LCD menu's are HORRIBLE! They built the buttons under a thick rubber overlay which require too much force to use them conviniently. You have to hold the unit to press them, else it will slide away from you or tips over. Even worse is the rubber mat makes it hard to determine which buttons your pressing.
Its an awsome unit for thoes with an eye for cool cutting edge features and strong fingers.. :)
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very happy, December 31, 2007
By user (san francisco, ca)
it setup itself, the lcd is great looking and very useful. i am impressed. shop around there are deals available.
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It Really Works! And Much Faster too!!, December 11, 2007
By user (Asia)
I checked on various reviews on this Belkin N1 Vision, and I hesitated for a couple months before finally deciding on making a leap of faith, and it paid off.
I installed it to replace a previous smaller and older Belkin wireless router that I have, and the CD-less installation took me less than 15 mins to rehook everything back and got all of them working. That was nice.
What is even better is the speed it gives, there is no comparison with my previous router. It is fast! Much faster, a few times faster, I can say.
And lthough its 802.11n 2.0 is still a draft, the speed it is giving is great. It works also immediately and better with the Belkin 5-port Network Hub (F5L009) that I have, and all the devices like harddisk and printer I have connected through the network hub, again with much faster speed.
Same goes for the LaCie Ethernet Mini Network Drive that I access wirelessly through the router, from all of my PC's, both XP and Vista. No problems there either.
This is great!!
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Beautiful design, poor software, November 19, 2007
By user (Columbus, OH, USA)
My Netgear MIMO router with lots of blinking blue lights got me hypnotized one evening and made me wonder if a company would ever make a router with a LCD display to show if someone has somehow logged onto my LAN without permission. The next night my Netgear router died and I discovered the N1 Vision. It was a sign from the wireless G heavens.
It is beautiful, it was packaged as if made by angels, and only twice what I wanted to spend on a router. The LCD screen is very pretty, and looks very cool. All of my machines (wired & wireless) connected just fine with very little time or effort. Even my Playstation 3 didn't cause a hiccup. The range is amazing, and connection speeds on the wireless are double what my Netgear could do. That, and I have only been able to lock the router up one time... but that was my own fault for changing lots of things in the configuration utility without giving it the appropriate time to save the settings. It is going on thirteen days straight without needing a manual resetting... not bad for my home! I don't expect this to be a major problem, unlike some other companies I've dealt with.
So, why only a 6 rating? Well, even with the latest firmware I am having a major LAN issue. Whenever a machine connects to the router, the DHCP assigns an IP, but doesn't seem to add it to its internal routing table. No other machines on the LAN can access it (file/print sharing, VNC, ping, etc.) and it cannot connect to anything else on the LAN, even though Internet access works just fine. Customer support has been worthless so far, and the only solution I have found is to do a software reset in the configuration utility (approximately 90 seconds). This seems to refresh the routing table for the LAN every time. Annoying, but a necessary evil right now to enjoy everything else this router has. I know that it will be fixed in some new future firmware, and I'm still deciding whether to wait it out or go back to some caveman wireless G router without a LCD display. That would be soooo 2006... hmmm.
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