I had the 713P and both laptops up running within an hour, the 713P pretty much worked out of the box, requiring only a couple of configuration changes which were clearly covered in the installation instructions. Both laptops have no problem accessing the internet connection and the wireless range is good, with the 713P on the first floor and one of the laptops on the third floor.

I hooked my HP printer to the parallel port on the back of the 713P, installed the print server software on my two laptops and I was printing from all over the house! The print server worked like a champ.

I had one issue; configuring the 713P is web-based, you point the browser to the 713P ip address and a webpage is presented. Any changes require a "save" and then a "warm restart" of the router via the web page. When I perform the router warm restart, I lose my wireless connection to the 713P and it doesn't reestablish unless I manually unplug power from the 713P and plug it back in. After that my wireless connection is restored and the changes I made are there. I called Dlink Tech Support, first level was friendly but had me trying some pretty elementary stuff that I knew wouldn't help. After an hour I was escalated to second level support. Second level told me I had to make configuration changes from a "wired" connection, I don't buy it... But I make so few changes to the 713P configuration that it's not a huge hassle and not worth knocking the product.

Overall I'm very satisfied, the network is stable, the range is good and I'm happy with my decision.

However after using tis for more than 4 months I have noticed the wireless signal strength is going down when i use my cordless phone, panasonic 2.4 . Sometimes I don't get any signal while using my phone.

The radio seemed to drift and lose signal strength. Not being sure if it was my Netgear card in the laptop, or the router, I picked up the Linksys router to troubleshoot with. Unlike, the D-Link product, my range is better and the connection quality seems consistent at 11Mbs. All indications are that the D-Link transmitter is flaky.

Take a guess which one is going back. It's a shame, because the D-Link product had a great price-point and feature set, but the number one feature, wireless, just didn't make the cut.

Tom

After receiving the box from the UPS it took all of 5 minutes to setup this device. 4 of those minutes were spent taking the device out of the box and reading the instructions. As far as I am concerned, setup is fool proof.

Secondly, the signal strength is perfect. The router is in my basement. I'm writing this review from the second floor. The signal strength is well over 80%. My previously purchased Linksys never gave me more than 40% when I was on the same floor!! I'm using a Linksys PC-card adaptor by the way.

This device is perfect!!!

The setup wasn't as easy as I had expected. I noticed two problems: one is that the quick start guide pretty much assumes you are doing the setup on a Windows 9x machine by instructing you to run "winipcfg" in configuring an IP address. Users that do setup from a Windows 2000 machine, be aware. The equivalent command is "ipconfig". The other problem is in "MAC Address Control" configuration. I wanted to assign a specific IP address to my desktop computer for port forwarding so that I can run that computer as a server. I filled in MAC address to IP address mapping in the table, but it didn't work. I later realized that I forgot to tick the "MAC address control enabled" box in the window. With due fairness, the manual does mention that we need to tick this box in order to use any feature in that window. But the UI can be more user-friendly. Why not grey out the other input fields in the window if this mater box isn't enabled? It's too easy to overlook.

It took me about 45 minutes from opening the box to getting my laptop connected to the Internet wirelessly, with some time wasted on fixing the second problem mentioned above. It took me less than 10 minutes to get the printer server working with my Epson 880, though.

The only shortcoming I've noticed in operation so far is with its ability to run an ftp server on my computer behind the box. My ftp server can't service ftp client from outside that uses passive mode due to the limitation of the NAT functionality on this box. Other brands may have this same problem too. Since not many people need to run their own ftp servers, I won't be surprised if this feature is more widely ignored. I rated this product 4 instead of 5 because this feature is important to me :-(

Also installed the printer port on all the 3 machines (there was no option to install for XP but I used the NT/2000 option and it worked out of the box). I was able to get rid of a number of printer cables and a switch box.

The reasons for not giving 5 stars: cursory documentation. Unclear explanation of how to create the encryption keys for WEP.

The range is incredible. My laptop can connect anywhere in my 2 story 1600 sq. ft. house. I even took it outside and can reach the network anywhere on my property and even by my neighbors house! I am very impressed with its range.

Now for the shortcoming -- the printer driver provided on the CDROM does not work for XP pc's. You have to go to the Dlink website to download that driver and read the FAQ for steps to install those drivers. My NEC-870 laser printer is still trying to work with the XP pc (work in progress). The ME-based pc, however loaded up the DI-713 drivers fine and printed to my laser sucessfully. The firewall also disabled my voice chat and netmeeting AV functionalities. This is a heavy price to pay for shared broadband pipeline. The tech rep told me to enable the DMV feature in the router setup advanced settings to bring down the firewall (I would still be protected by Norton's Internet Security fire wall, I hope). That gave me limited voice but no video (work in progress). Overall, I give it a 4, not 5 due to the above shortcomings. They should have XP drivers on the CDROMs by now, it need not be that tedious. That done, the DI-713/DWL-120 combo would be a fantastic setup.