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>> Hello everyone. This is Dong Ngo for CNET.com and I have with me today the D-Link DIR-855 Xtreme N Duo Media Router. The DIR-855 is another true dual-band wireless router. It has two separate Draft N 2.0 access points. One works in the 2.4Ghz frequency, which is very popular. Actually, too popular and therefore saturated and might make your Wi-Fi signal potentially unstable. The N access point on the other hand uses the 5Ghz frequency, which is new, clean and often better wireless signal, range and stability. These two access points can operate simultaneously making the wireless Draft N 2.0 network available to both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghrz wireless clients at the same time. The DIR-855 has the same design as some of the D-Link's previous models. It has three antennas attached to the back of the router, which is never a good thing as they crowd the network ports. These antennae however are removable, in case you want to install a higher power antenna for better range. The DIR-855 has four LAN ports and one WAN port. These ports are all gigabit supporting speed up to 1000 megabit per second. It also come with an OLED Network Activity Display on top that has two navigation buttons and can come in handy when you want to check the status of the router or quickly change some basic settings. Some though may find this little display confusing and hard to use. The DIR-855 also has a USB port on the back. This port is only for Windows Connect Now, a feature that allows for connecting wireless clients to a network using a USB or thumb drive. It will be a much more useful if the USB port also supported print serving or external storage. The router also feature Wi-Fi Protected Setup, another method for quickly adding wireless clients to the network without having to type in or even reveal the encryption key. The DIR-855 like most D-Link wireless router comes with a very intuitive and responsive Web interface. Using this interface, you can customize a lot of network features and settings, such as port forwarding, virtual servers, Network Filter, application rules and so on. We put the router through the test and it offer very good throughput performance. However, its range could be better. In our testing the router had a hard time maintaining a stable connection further than 270-feet away. You can get the DIR-855 now for about $280, which is rather expensive. But I suspect the price will go down soon as dual band routers are becoming more and more popular. For more information, please check out our in-depth review at CNET.com. My name is Dong Ngo and this has been the First Look at D-Link DIR-855 Xtreme N Duo Media Router.
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