D-Link DGL-4500 Gamer Lounge Wireless N Gigabit Gaming Router Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2010-05-08
·
1,147 words · ~5 min read
0:00
Okay, so today we're going to be having a quick look at the DLink
0:04
DGL4500. So this is from their Gamer Lounge series of networking products.
0:09
And that means that it is optimized for, wait for it, gaming. Yes. Okay.
0:15
Awesome. So that means that the gaming feature it seems to have over its
0:19
cousin, the DW, oh crap, DIR 655 is that
0:24
it has an LCD on the top and it also features game fuel priority. So, let's
0:28
have a look at the back of the box and see what we can find in terms of information about this router. Powered
0:34
by Game Fuel. Nothing ruins a frag faster than lag. Basically, what Game
0:38
Fuel does is it prioritizes gaming packets over something like your
0:42
roommate's favorite '8s hairband music. So, if someone else is downloading files
0:47
somewhere else on your network and you are gaming, it should in theory
0:51
prioritize those gaming packets over all of the other stuff that's going on. So,
0:55
let me see. includes World of Conflict content. Oh, this is actually
0:59
interesting. It is a gigabit router, so you do pay a bit of a premium, but if
1:04
you want both extreme and wireless and gigabit, then it's pretty important to
1:08
find a high-end router. I mean, personally, I wouldn't settle for anything less than Gigabit these days,
1:13
especially with the way that the cost has come down. It also features dual
1:16
technology, so your router has the power of dualband 2.04 or 5 GHz wireless
1:20
signals to get your game on in the wireless band of your choice. Now, I'm
1:24
not a huge fan of gaming on wireless, and you can actually check out the full
1:29
NCX tech tips episode we did on wireless
1:32
versus wired versus power line. And I'm
1:35
a big power line user these days. But that doesn't mean that wireless doesn't
1:40
still have its use and that you wouldn't still want draft N for example, or
1:43
rather N I should call it because maybe you have a laptop and you want to stream
1:47
HD content. N makes a huge difference for that. So, let's see what we got
1:50
inside. First of all, here is your start, insert CD, and run wizard. I'm
1:55
just going to ignore that phone call. Sorry about that. Okay. And then there
1:59
is a disc. I can't imagine any reason you would ever use an installation CD
2:03
for a router. It makes zero sense to me and I've never put one in my computer.
2:07
Maybe there's something useful, but whatever. Okay. It's your internet, so
2:10
take charge. Okay. So, some kind of ad. All right. Then you've got a quick
2:14
install guide. All right. So, the quick install guide is pretty much a a world
2:18
in conflict poster. There you go. Okay.
2:21
And it has the router at the bottom of it. Leg is no longer an excuse. Okay.
2:26
And then on the other side, that is where the quick install guide actually
2:30
comes in. So here, what's funny about the quick install guide? Oh, this is
2:33
awesome. Is there is no step that requires you to put that CD in. Okay, so
2:37
the CD includes a manual and a router setup wizard. Okay, there you go. So it
2:41
shows you how to set it up. Great. Okay, so next we will find an AC adapter.
2:46
Nothing particularly exciting about that. And then we have three huge
2:51
2.45 GHz labeled antennas which we can
2:55
plug into the back of the router. So you can see these are like the huge bulky
2:59
kind. There we go. Then we have a little stand for standing the router up on its
3:03
side if you don't want to run it as like a desktop router and switch. Okay, hold
3:07
on. We've got a Cat 5e
3:10
cable. Yeah, that's Cat 5e, I think.
3:13
Yeah, whatever. It doesn't really matter. And then a couple of screws for
3:16
I think this is for wall mounting it or something. Oh, and it has little rubber feet for propping it up on the desk, I
3:21
guess. Oh, no. It comes with rubber feet. I can't imagine what those are for. Now the cameraman's phone's
3:26
ringing. Use of this device may make your wireless network connect. Oh, okay.
3:29
This is a good warning to see. They give you a quick warning and show you how to
3:33
go to their support site to set up your wireless for um WPA2 security, which is
3:40
really important because you don't want someone, for example, tapping into your
3:45
wireless connection to download illegal content or something like that and then
3:48
you end up blamed for it. So, I mean, that kind of thing is pretty bad news. I
3:53
mean, it's one of those things where, yeah, people aren't supposed to do that,
3:56
but the same people who aren't supposed to download anything illegal are the
4:00
ones who are doing that, right? So, here's where the LCD screen is, and
4:03
these buttons are used for navigating through it. I have one of these at home,
4:06
and honestly, the screen is totally useless. You should be using the the web
4:11
gooey based uh web interface to configure the router.
4:16
192.168.0.1. Here is a reset button. Okay. It's kind of nice to see that.
4:20
That's Oh, no. That's not a reset. Okay. I have no idea what this button does. Sorry. Okay. Then we've got the other
4:25
side and then we're around at the back. So, here's where we plug in our
4:28
antennas. And you can see we've got 4 GB LAN ports. So, there's a gigabit switch
4:33
built in. And then you've also got your uh internet uplink port right there.
4:37
That USB port, I believe, can be used as a print server among other things. And
4:42
the firmware updates are actually done in a really smart way on this router.
4:46
It's really nice. You just go into the uh to the router configuration screen
4:50
and then you just tell it go update and it does it. It's really seamless. I mean
4:54
a lot of routers out there you have to like download it to a USB key and then
4:58
plug it in and then upload it and it's very strange. Anyway, thank you for
5:01
checking out my unboxing and quick product. Oh, it's shiny. We should do
5:05
the shiny shot. Yeah, don't go away yet. See? See how shiny it is? Actually, it
5:09
gets scratched up really fast. There's like nothing you can do. Thank you for checking out my unboxing of the DGL
5:14
4500.