Why You Can Trust CNET Zyxel X-550N wireless router review: Zyxel X-550N wireless router
Zyxel X-550N wireless router
With its great range, fast throughput, VPN support, Gigabit Ethernet, and $100 price tag, the Zyxel X-550N wireless router seems like a good deal for most situations. Unfortunately, the device's mediocre wireless signal stability makes it hard for us to recommend it without some reservations, especially for those who play online games. The router's bulky package and lack of support for dual band, guest networking, and USB devices doesn't help.
Zyxel X-550N wireless router
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
That said, if you are looking for a fast router with VPN support to create a network of mostly wired connections and you use wireless networking only casually, the Zyxel X-550N makes a good investment. For environments where wireless signal stability is important, we'd recommend the high-end Netgear WNDR3700 or the similarly priced Linksys WRT320N.
Design and ease of use
The Zyxel X-550N Wireless Router's design is that of a typical wireless router with three antennas on the back, together with the network ports, and an array of LED indicator lights on the front. It's about 15 percent larger than most routers, such as the Trendnet TEW-639GR or the D-Link DIR-655. The larger size suggests that the router works best when put on a surface but it's also wall-mountable.
The ports on this router are Gigabit, meaning they can handle speeds up to 1,000Mbps, a bonus if you want to do a lot of wired networking. The three antennas are detachable, which comes in handy if you want to pack the router up. In daily usage, however, they are in the way when you want to work with the ports. We would prefer if they were on the side of the router, away from the ports. Also on the back, you'll find the Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) button, which initiates a short window of time when WPS-enabled clients can enter the network. Again, we'd prefer this button to be in a more accessible location.
The router comes with a setup application that includes detailed instructions; even those who aren't computer savvy shouldn't have a problem setting everything up. We were able to do so within 5 minutes, which included the time spent getting the device out of the box.
Other than the application, which is Flash-based and doesn't require any installation, you can access and set up the router via its Web interface. To do this you just need to connect the router to a computer using a network cable, turn it on, and then, from the computer, point a Web browser to the router's default IP address, which is printed on its bottom.
Features
Other than the Gigabit Ethernet, the Zyxel X-550N doesn't offer any other additional features found in high-end routers. There's no support for guest networking, which allows you to make another separate wireless network for guests. The router doesn't have support for the 5Ghz frequency, nor can it work as a print or network storage server, as it has no USB port.
Zyxel X-550N offers a few useful networking features that can be managed via the Web interface. The interface itself is organized into four categories: Network, Security, Management, and Maintenance. Each category contains items that lead directly to certain features or functions of the router. For example, in the Network category, you can change the settings of the wireless network, the Internet connection, the local network, and so on. We really liked the fact that the router shows the list of clients currently connected to it; next to each of them there's a "reserve" check box. When this box is checked, the current IP address will be used only for that particular client. This is a great feature when you want to set up special services, such as FTP server or remote desktop, to a computer in the network. Other routers, such as the Apple Airport Base Station , require many steps to get this done.
Other features of the router, including firewall, content filter, and VPN, are also easily accessible. The X-550N has built-in IPSec VPN with two IPSec VPN tunnels for secure data transfer between remote sites and the central sever. The content filter feature is rather simple. You can restrict Web features such as ActiveX, Java, cookies, and Web proxies, and you can block access to the Internet via URL keywords. For example, if you block the keyword "CN," then you won't be able to access sites with this keyword in their domain names, such as cnet.com or cnn.com.
For security, the router supports all existing wireless-encryption methods including WEP, WPA, and WPA2. As mentioned earlier, it also comes with Wi-Fi Protected Setup features that allows you to add a new client to the network at the press of a button, instead of having to type in the encryption key manually.
Performance
We tested the Zyxel X-550N with a Linksys WUSB600N wireless adapter that Zyxel included with the router (for reviewers only), and it did very well in regard to data transferring.
In the Throughput test, where we test a router at its best settings with a wireless client that's only 15 feet away, the X-550N scored 50.2Mbps, among the top five of single-band routers. At this speed, the router can finish transmitting 500MB of data in about 80 seconds.
In the Range test, where the client is 100 feet away from the test router, the X-550N performed even better with the core of 48Mbps, topping the chart among 2.4Ghz routers by a significant margin. For comparison, the second fastest is the D-Link DIR-825 that scored only 40.4Mbps in the same test.
The Zyxel X-550N also did very well in the Mixed mode test, where the router was set to work with both Wireless-N and legacy wireless-G and B clients, with the score of 36.4Mbps.
Apart from these very good throughput scores, the X-550N performed well in our range test. It was able to hold a steady connection from a distance of 300 feet away. Most other wireless-N routers we've reviewed could only offer a range of up to 270 feet.
Though we were happy with the router's throughput and range performance, we were disappointed with signal stability after it failed our 24-hour stress test. In this test we transfer a large amount of data back and forth from different wireless clients to see if the test router can hold the connections continuously over an extended amount of time. The ZyxelX-550N's signal reset after about 7 hours, causing the data transferring to be interrupted. This might not translate into a bad Web-surfing experience, but it will likely kick you out of an online game or any kind of Internet-related tasks that require a steady connection.
We also noted that the signal stability varied depending on the clients. When tried with different laptops, some worked very well and others had a hard time keeping a stable connection to the router. The router also has no option to operate in just wireless-N, rather it always works in the mixed mode, supporting all clients, N and legacy G and B, all the time.
We tested the Zyxel X-550N with its latest firmware, version 360BFD3D0. We really hope that the router's wireless stability will improve with its next firmware. That would make it one of the best single-band wireless-N routers we've seen
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
 | Mixed mode | | Range | | Throughput |
Service and support
The Zyxel X-550N comes with a two-year warranty; most manufacturers only offer one year. The support page on Zyxel's site offers downloads for the firmware, manual, user guide, as well as other support recourses. The company's toll-free technical support is available Monday through Friday, from 8 p.m. till 5 p.m. PT.