Hardware Bistro

Product: WN-200R
Manufacturer: Airlive
Supplied by: Airlive
Price: 45USD/RM160
Launch Date: NA

 

As we know wireless connectivity is getting more popular than wired connectivity nowadays due to its greater flexibility. Hence in the near future, most of the networking makers will concentrate more on wireless connectivity products and wireless router is one of the hot devices especially for personal & home usage. Today let us have a quick look on Air Live WN-200R; a 150Mbps 802.11n wireless gigabyte router.

 

Company Profile

The manufacturer of AirLive products, OvisLink Corp. was founded in 1993 in Taiwan by a group of industrial experts who set out to provide the best combination of quality, service, technology and value in the industry. Today, OvisLink Corp. is an international corporation, total networking solution provider with over 200 products and with hundreds of distributors around the world.

AirLive is a brand providing Innovation, Solutions, Reliability and Technology. AirLive's R&D department continuously focuses its efforts on developing the right products including AirLive WISP and Outdoor solutions, AirLive SMB and Security solutions and AirLive Small Office and Home products.

 

Features

Specifications

Package & Content

 

Same packaging ID was chosen by Air Live for WN-200R which is good in term of marketing as well as product simplification but users need pay attention when buying such product as it can be purchased wrongly because these products' packaging are pretty similar. As usual Multilanguage's brief introduction is available at the back of packaging box since Air Live is a global brand.

 

Overall Air Live WN-200R is packed securely as the outer cardboard box is quite solid. Besides that mylar is attached on the top surface of Air Live WN-200R as this panel comes with glossy surface which could be scratches easily if it is not protected well. The power adapter is kept inside a smaller white box while other accessories that come along with Air Live WN-200R are an antenna, software CD and a quick user's manual.

 

As usual a power adapter is included for a wireless router and this is same for Air Live WN-200R which is an all-in-one power adapter and it is pretty small as well. Air Live WN-200R only comes with single antenna which is more suitable for shorter range setup as it doesn't come with 2 or 3 antennas. Only a short quick reference guide is provided but the complete user's guide can be downloaded from Air Live website or the bundled software CD.

 

A Closer Look - AirLive WN-200R

Currently there are 9 active wireless routers in Air Live website where some of them support b/g/n, Turbo-G, g, n, or MiMo-G. Air Live WN-200R is a midrange wireless router that is not only support b/g/n connectivity but also full compatible with Turbo-G and MiMo-G. Among the rest of the Air Live wireless routers, we could say that WN-200R is the one that comes with most elegant design which is perfect for personal/home usage especially for those are looking for a decent performance wireless router with charming design.

 

The product size of Air Live WN-200R is pretty impressive as it only comes with 145 x 120 x 34 mm (L x W x H) dimension for a 802.11n speed wireless router and furthermore Air Live WN-200R also supports up to four wired LAN connection. The top panel of Air Live WN-200R is a glossy type white panel while the bottom panel comes with grey color. As we mentioned before Air Live WN-200R is also a 4-port switching hub for wired connection with 10BaseT and 100BaseT speed.

 

The front panel (LED indicator panel) of Air Live WN-200R is much slimmer than the rear panel which makes it looks much slimmer than it is; similar theory is being applied on most of the notebooks nowadays as well. Anyway the front panel comes with two buttons; WPS and Reset. Press the WPS button on both of the wireless devices (WN-200R & the other wireless device) to perform WPS function which a simple way to create encryption for securing wireless connection between these two devices automatically. The reset button can be used for two purposes; to reboot the device or to restore back to factory default values if press and hold for 8 seconds.

Here is the LED indicator panel of Air Live WN-200R and there are total six blue LED indicators which carry different functions and meanings. These LED indicators are on/off swithc for "Security", "Wireless", "LAN", "Power", "WAN" and "Internet". If these specific features are turned on, the blue LED will be lighten up and if there is something wrong with these specific setting or connection then the specific LED indicator will be flashing with amber color.

For the rear panel of Air Live WN-200R, there are totally 7 connectors; Power, WAN, LAN 1-4 and an antenna connector. The power and WAN are compulsory connectors in order to allow this router working as per design. The WAN connector is highlighted in yellow to avoid wrong connection setup since LAN and WAN ports are exactly same so it can be mistaken accidentally. The antenna and LAN ports are only required if both wireless & wired connections are required else either one of them is needed to be configured.

 

Here are the side and bottom panels of Air Live WN-200R. As you can see, the portion of Air Live WN-200R's rear panel is having a virtual stand so that its ventilation system can be further improved. Anyway the whole unit of Air Live WN-200R is surrounded with plenty of air vents; top, bottom as well as side panels to ensure the heat is properly dissipated so that its life span could be improved.

 

Installation, Testing & Performance

Installation for a wireless router is not that difficult and it would be extremely easy if you have setup any of these similar wireless router before; no matter it is b, g or n type wireless router. Since Air Live WN-200R is not an all-in-one wireless router + modem so Air Live WN-200R needs to be connected to a DSL/cable modem through the WAN connector where the modem is connected to the phone line. If you are going to setup wireless connectivity then the antenna needs to be installed.

After that Air Live WN-200R is readied to work for you. Power up Air Live WN-200R and check for the LED indicators to ensure everything is setup corrected. If nothing is abnormal then Let us process with software setup for Air Live WN-200R which is a bit troublesome compares with standard wired router. Anyway there isn't any driver or software is required for wireless or wired router as the firmware/driver/software is preloaded inside the router itself.

Now let's us proceed with software configuration for this Air Live WN-200R wireless router. The default IP address for Air Live WN-200R is HTTP://192.168.1.254 and the default username & passwords are "admin" and "airlve". If the login is successful then this is the home screen for Air Live WN-200R. There are a couple of sections within this home screen; Setup Wizard, LAN, Mode, Password, Status (Wireless, Advanced, Administration), Log Out and Restart.

Setup wizard will run automatically for the first time setup as well as when the Air Live WN-200R is restored back to manufacturing default value. Before start to setup the Air Live WN-200R, some basic information is required to know such as type of ISP internet connection service which is shown as above; Dynamic IP Address is the most common type among the rest of the internet connection services.

This is the LAN setting for Air Live WN-200R. IP address needs to be changed if the address is already in use or the LAN is using different IP address range. Subnet Mask will be same for standard small (Class C) networks. DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server is used to allocate a valid IP address to the connected PC/device; enable at default and disable if there is a DHCP servers on the same LAN segment as 2 DHCP servers are not allowed.

Two device modes are available for Air Live WN-200R; either set it to be a router or an access point. For the router mode, the device will works as a DHCP server and provides IP address and related information to all wireless and LAN users. While for access point, the device will link all the wireless stations to the wired LAN and able to communicate to each others regardless whether they are connected through wired or wireless connection.

For the wireless section, there are couples of sub sections; options, mode, MAC filter and Wifi protect setup. For 802.11 mode, specific wireless mode can be selected; off, B only, G only or 11b/g/n. Channel No. needs to be fine tuned if there is interference problem. WPS can be enabled in the WiFi protect setup section where AP & Input client PIN codes are required.

2 SSIDs can be setup on one AP for multiple SSIDs configuration. If broadcast SSID is enable then the PC/device will able to detect this access point else manually type in the SSID is required if it is disable. For the security setting, it can be disabled or enable with either one of these settings; WEP, WPA-PSK, WPA2-PSK or WPA-802.1x. The differences between these security settings can be found in internet or user's manual, anyway we choose WPA2-PSK for our setup.

Here is the summary of the network connection of Air Live WN-200R. DMZ is one of the advanced features of Air Live WN-200R which allows the DMZ computer to be exposed to all users on the internet but it is effectively outside the firewall, making it more vulnerable to attacks. URL filter is used to limit or block the certain site on the internet. There are plenty of things that we can talk about Air Live WN-200R software setup so we will just skip the rest here and if you interest, you may download the user's manual from here.

 

Test Bed:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8300 @ 2.83GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3 (Gigabyte G31M-ES2L)
Heatsink: Noctua NH-C12P
Memory: Kingston HyperX DDR2 8500
Hard Drive: 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Seagate
Graphic Card: Galaxy GeForce GTX260+
PSU: In Win Commander 750W
Router: TRENDnet TEW-639GR
Optical Drive: DVD RW
Monitor: Dell 22" Wide Screen LCD
Speaker: Edifier R501
Mouse: SteelSeries Ikari Laser
Mouse Pad: SteelSeries QcK+
HeadSet: SteelSeries 3H
Operating System: Microsoft XP Pro SP2/Vista Home Premium
Ambient Temperature: 27 Degree Celsius

 

After all these long talk, let us continue with the performance of Air Live WN-200R. We have tested Air Live WN-200R with another 802.11n type wireless router with Streamyx speed test and above are the test results (left is Airlive Wn-200R while right is another wireless router). As you can see, both of these 802.11n wireless routers perform quite similar without much significant difference since both of them are equppied with same type of wireless technology; 802.11 b/g/n. In term of noise and heat, Air Live WN-200R doesn't generate any noise at all since it doesn't come with any active cooling system but in term of heat, basically the whole router is quite hot after it is powered on for a couple of hours and this is why Air Live designed its casing with plenty of air vents else it will be really overheated for long hour of usages especially 24/7.

 

Verdicts

Wireless connectivity will slowly and eventually replace wired connection in most of the sector especially for personal home usage since wireless connectivity has became one of the "compulsory" technologies in the modern life nowadays. Choosing a wireless router is not that hard because there are plenty of similar wireless routers in the market and all of them offer quite similar features except design, price as well as some additional unique features & advantages. Air Live WN-200R is one of the decent 802.11n type wireless router which it not only offers most of the common features but also comes with attractive price as it is only being sold at 45USD which is a good deal for such fast and latest wireless router.

 

Pros:

+ Value
+ Decent performance
+ Stylish design & small size
+ Plenty of features are supported
+ WPS push button support
+ Multi SSID & SSID isolation

Cons:

- Ventilation could be further improved
- Software UI could be further simplified or improved

 

Thanks to Airlive for providing this sample for us to review.

Only registered users may post a comment.

Bob	5.0 / 5	Wed 7 Apr 10
This was a great review to me because it was apparently 'hands on', rather than just repeating MFR stuff. I'm not sure if this 'comment' is supposed to be on the review or the router(?) I bought an AirLive G.Duo recently[basically]in the blind,because there was no 'hands on' info on the web. Anyway, KUDOS to whoever wrote/compiled this review of the WN-200R. This is a very well done review!!!!!!!