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LAS VEGAS--There's now another true 450Mbps dual-band router on the block.

Belkin announced today at CES 2012 the Advance N900 DB Wireless Dual-Band N+ Router, model F9K1104. This is the company's top-tier wireless router, similar to the already released Linksys E4200 v2 from Cisco or the WNDR4500 of Netgear.

The router offers the new 450Mbps wireless data rate on both the 2.4Ghz and 5Gh bands. Belkin says it also support its exclusive MultiBeam Technology designed to deliver "a high-powered signal that allows for higher and more-consistent network speeds and minimizes the number of wireless dead spots.&… Read more

With almost 550,000 active apps in the iTunes App Store, you get plenty of variation, and one developer continues to release games that are downright silly.

Many iPhone gamers will probably remember Justin Smith's Enviro-Bear 2010 (99 cents) from Captain Games. When the game came out in 2009, our Mac and iOS freelance reviewer, Paul Hughes, started the review by saying, "Enviro-Bear 2010 is part game, part joke, part art piece, and part game-design experiment." In Enviro-Bear 2010, the premise is that you are a bear getting ready to hibernate and you must drive a car … Read more

Cisco Systems released the original Linksys E4200 in January, which turned out to be a formidable wireless router.

Now as the year is ending, the company announced today the second version of the same router. And the Linksys E4200 v2 Maximum Performance Dual-Band N900 turns out to be one of the best, if not the best, router of the year.

The new E4200 v2 looks exactly the same as the original on the outside, with a sleek-looking design that looks more like an expensive jewelry box than a router. On the inside, however, it packs much more power than the … Read more

Sometimes, the simplest gadgets turn out to be the most useful, and such is the case with the Macro Cell Lens Band.

What you see here is pretty much what you get: a rubber band with an embedded macro lens that you can wrap around any smartphone to take close-up photos. When not in use, you can simply wear it on your wrist or store it in your wallet on a credit card. … Read more

An AirPort Express will let you listen to iTunes over your home stereo speakers. Airfoil is an application that takes that simple functionality and turns it up to 11. The iTunes-AirPort Express combo is perfect for listening to iTunes on your nice stereo, but what if you want to hear music from a browser-based app like Pandora? Or Sirius Radio through an app like StarPlayr? Or work with audio from your Elgato EyeTV? Airfoil lets you send audio from any application (even your system audio) to your AirPort Express, so you can use your stereo for anything from RealPlayer and … Read more

Muzine is a music news app for iPad that lets you read the latest music topics in an easy-to-read format, or lets you customize your feeds to get news only from your favorite bands and sources. After launching the app, you're given a slideshow of featured stories--strangely, you can't go to a story by tapping on it, but instead need to hit the Features button to get access to full stories. Even with this oversite, the columned layout of the stories in the Featured section makes browsing for music news incredibly easy and enjoyable. A swipe upwards lets … Read more

The WNDR3800 N600 Wireless Dual-Band Gigabit Router isn't intended to be Netgear's top-of-the-line wireless router for homes. That's the role of the WNDR4500, which makes no compromises and offers 450Mbps wireless speed on both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands.

However, in our testing, we found that the WNDR3800 is arguably the best router among those recently announced by Netgear. For one, despite the fact that it only supports the 300Mbps standard, its real-world data rates on the 2.4GHz band are better than the WNDR4800's.

Furthermore, the WNDR3800 offers something that its big brother doesn't: it can host a USB external hard drive as a personal cloud storage option. It even comes with a piece of software called ReadyShare Cloud PC-Agent, which enables VPN-like access for the remote computer, as though the remote computer were in the same local network as the router.

On the other hand, the WNDR4500's storage capability is limited to that of a local network.

The router also offers great range and signal stability. It comes with a helpful Netgear Genie desktop application and a very easy-to-use and robust Web interface that both help novice and advanced users alike to set up and manage a network.

At a street price of around $150, it's a good choice for homes and home offices.

For more information on the WNDR3800's features and performance, check out CNET's full review of the Netgear WNDR3800 N600 Wireless Dual-Band Gigabit Router.… Read more

Netgear announced today the availability of its latest wireless router, the N900 wireless-dual band gigabit router (model WNDR4500).

This is first true dual-band router from the company, and the second submitted for a CNET review, that offers the new 450Mbps speed on both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. The first was the TEW-692GR from Trendnet.

While the Trendnet TEW-692GR doesn't offer much else, the N900 on the other hand is also the first of its kind to incorporate two USB ports to host USB external storage devices and printers. Physically, the N900 is one of the biggest routers … Read more

Netgear announced today the availability of its top-of-the-line true dual-band router, the N600 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router Premium Edition (model WNDR3800).

Introduced at CES 2011, the WNDR3800 is an upgrade to the company's existing WNDR3700. Netgear says it's the first home router to offer the Clear Channel Selector feature and also the first that's capable of creating private cloud file sharing through Netgear's new ReadyShare Cloud service.

Clear Channel Selector, which the company says is generally available only in expensive wireless routers for businesses, "automatically detects when the Wi-Fi channel currently in use becomes … Read more