Belkin Wireless Play Router (F7D4302)

10 Review to this product

• 

  John S. Hodson
  December 29th, 2010 on 3:30 pm

  Rating

  I bought this router at Costco despite all of the negative reviews. Costco has a liberal return policy and the price was right. The first thing that I did after unboxing the router was to upgrade the firmware to the August update using the address stated in some of the reviews. I now have 1 wired computer, 2 wireless computers, a wired blu ray player, and a wireless blu ray player connected. All currently function without any problems. The setup was easy and performance seems very good. This product may have been a problem at one time, but it seems like somebody (Belkin) may have been listening since this has been a very good router so far.
  
  Just wanted to update my experience with the router since so many people are having severe problems. In my experience, you must update to version 027 of the firmware. If not you will have all of the problems mentioned by the other reviewers. I can’t excuse Belkin for not getting it right earlier, but I am running that version with no problems.
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  James Beswick
  December 30th, 2010 on 12:06 pm

  Rating

  I experienced many of the problems people are reporting in these reviews, including slowness, ping latency, dropping wireless connections and so forth. All of these were solved when I upgraded the firmware, which you can do by logging into the router and navigating into the upgrade menu.

  I couldn’t find any useful information on Belkin’s site and was about to return the unit when I did this as one final attempt to troubleshoot the router. Once the firmware is upgraded, the router acts just fine. I’m still a fan of the Linksys routers over other makes, but hopefully this one will continue to not cause any slowness on my wired desktops. I hope this advice helps anyone who’s having problems with the Belkin Play, since their documentation and support is practically non-existent.

  *** Thanks to Belkin for improving their site and support resources recently. ***
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  Joshua A. Maes
  December 30th, 2010 on 8:06 pm

  Rating

  This is an excellent router!!! I get extremely fast internet connections on multiple computers and gaming systems and best of all, I am able to integrate an external hard drive into the network for all the computers to share. It is just like the others have said, as long as you update your firmware immediately upon setup, you shouln’t have any issues. I have been a long-time linksys user, but the extra ammenities and the great value for a Wireless N+ router made the switch easy.
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  Ellis S. Graybill
  December 30th, 2010 on 10:46 pm

  Rating

  I purchased this router to replace my 2-wire from sbc. Hard wire hookup was easy and worked right away. Wireless was a little more difficult because it doesn’t tell you anywhere that the SSID and password are cap sensitive. I called tech support and got through quickly but figured out the problem while talking to them. The software and firmware updates downloaded and installed without a problem. You should run the software from the machine you want wireless access with. Also you only need to run the software from one machine. I accessed the wireless from my laptop and iPhone without using the software. Range seems pretty good. I have the router in the basement and get a good signal on the sencond floor.
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  Julie Shackleford
  December 31st, 2010 on 5:38 am

  Rating

  I bought the Belking Play router at Walmart. It was on clearance for $50 which is a good price compared to the Cisco Valet router. the box said easy installation and it definately was! I set it up for my desktop and laptop in about 10 minutes. All I had to do was plug it in and put the cd in the computer. I am not very technically inclined, but this was simple. I get great signal strength in my 3 story 3000 square foot house. I almost returned it after reading the bad reviews on amazon, but decided to try it out first. I definately reccomend this product.
• 

  J. Donaldson
  December 31st, 2010 on 7:39 pm

  Rating

  This was the first item I’ve purchased that had an Amazon rating of two (as of 6/10/2010) or lower. From what I could tell, most of the negative aspects of the router were due to:

  1) The router locking up, forcing a reset.
  
  2) The reset losing configuration information.
  
  3) Extremely poor N signal transmission distance.
  
  4) Worthless/non-working “apps” that install on a windows pc
  
  5) Lack of tweaking options, missing front panel connectivity indicator

  I’m on a mac, so the apps weren’t of interest to me. However, the other features of this router (dual band wireless, usb print/drive sharing) coupled with the low price did attract me.

  I immediately upgraded the firmware, and it solved problems 1-3 for me. I’ve had no issues with connectivity, the router has not reset in at least a week, and I can get a strong signal from either transmitter from down the block if necessary. I cannot vouch for the “software” based installation method, since I did mine over the integrated webserver @ 192.168.1.1. I also cannot vouch for the extra “apps” that this provides. Also, instead of a front panel connectivity indicator, this router just has a single “idiot” light which is green normally, but turns yellow or red if it is disconnected or having a problem. I normally want some kind of indicator panel, but since this router is getting tucked into a drawer, I’m not upset about it.

  For a dual band, usb sharing router, this is surely worth the $80 or so that is being charged… provided you are savvy enough to know how to upgrade the firmware via the onboard webserver, aren’t going to bother with the apps, and don’t mind the absence of a front indicator panel.
  
• 

  J. Showalter
  January 1st, 2011 on 10:10 pm

  Rating

  A week ago the old wireless router at our church final went down. I bought this Belkin Play Wireless Router based on a review on [...]. I installed it hard wired to an XP machine, and connected wirelessly two XP, one Vista and one Win 7 laptops to it with no issues at all.

  Setup: I found it easy to use. Yes in the tray is a grey icon. Right click on that and you get into the router, the manual and other features/apps. I think that is easier for people to use than remember the routers IP.

  Printing: For XP machine printing, I did have to go into the print port and put in the correct IP address. With Vista and Win 7, I had no issues. It auto detected. We had an unrelated issue with the print drivers themselves but it was not related to the router.

  Speed/Range: The wireless download speed from changing routers increased from 1.8M to 2.8M (we have a 3M DSL line) with about the same upload speed. The other thing I noticed, is the strength of the signal increased dramatically. In the same location (about 90-100 ft away) in the building, we doubled the signal strength. Before we had to put in a booster and still had issues getting a strong enough signal. No signal problem now.

  Security: It comes out of the box ready to go. By default you can use the SSID and passphrase that comes on a card with the router.

  Con: It powers off at night and the office staff told me it does not automatically wake up. I need to double check on that.
• 

  David Garrett
  January 3rd, 2011 on 12:25 am

  Rating

  I bought this to upgrade from a perfectly working Belkin Wireless G router. I mainly wanted the extra strength, speed, and the USB port on back for my external hd. I had no issues with set up, which impressed me. Usually there are always some little problems that arise; however there were none! Went over, connected my wii, my other desktop, my laptop, my wireless printer, and my BlackBerry. All work fine, even better. I’m watching a netflix movie through my wii while I’m typing this. It hasn’t buffered once! Woo Hoo! I know Belkin gets a lot of slack, but that’s all I use. I had the wireless g router, I have a Belkin Wireless adapter, a Belkin Wireless N+ adapter, and now this router. I love my set up
• 

  Games 4 Le$$
  January 3rd, 2011 on 3:31 am

  Rating

  I’m not too sure why people keep giving this router 1 star. Perhaps they need to try updating their firmware as that’s very important for any computer accessory. In any case, out of the box this router was incredibly simple to set up. I power-cycled my modem then connected the router and turned them both on. After inserting the disc it really does the rest for you, including automatically updating your firmware. This router has amazing features and an even more amazing connection speed. After having bad encounters with other N routers, I figured I’d give this one a shot. I had lag free gaming on my 360 and PS3 and was still able to connect two laptops and the best part is, the connection speed didn’t slow one bit.

  I imagine I’ll be using this router for quite some time to come. I’ve never really used Belkin brand anything because I always figured they were a lower-end company. If this router is any indication of the direction they’re going then I’m very impressed. I was using a linksys router but I can only power-cycle a router so many times a day before I say it’s time to move on.

  For the features you get (especially the app that supports streaming via USB connection to an external HDD), you can’t ask for a lower price. The linksys routers that had similar specs started at about $119. If you ask me, this is the router to go with if you’re into gaming and streaming music/HD videos over your network.
  
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  Naher Elramly
  January 4th, 2011 on 1:55 pm

  Rating

  I bought this router after going through 5 different models / brands in the last 3 weeks as a replacement for a Microsoft G router, which was extremely stable and treated me well for a few years. We just bought our house and I wanted to upgrade to an N-based connection to reach out about 60 feet AND through three walls out to the garage where my workstation is set up.

  This router is amazingly simple to install and setup! If you are not the techie type and don’t want to mess with the security settings, it comes preset with an SSID and password ready to go. At the same time it offers you the option to change all the default settings! I’m not a networking expert, but I am familiar with wireless settings, so I dug in to the router’s interface and WOW! It offers a lot of advanced settings for you to tinker with! All the security features including my favorite, the MAC address filtering!

  The router is connected to a desktop running Time Warner’s cable modem on a Vista Home 32 bit OS. My laptop is running Windows XP Pro with sp3. The Print Genie feature is GREAT! Contrary to what the so-called expert reviewers like CNET say that you must have the PC that’s connected to the router on to print wirelessly! NO, you just connect to router and it automatically detects your printers and if no one else is one that printer, it gives you access to it until you release that access.
  
  ***The only thing is to make sure on your VISTA machine to set an exception to Port 1631 in your Firewall settings, and it will run like a charm!*** On my XP laptop, the Print Genie works without any additional settings to the firewall!

  As most of you may know that any 5GHz spectrum is much lower in bandwidth at greater distances than the 2GHz. That goes for any dual-band N router. But of all the routers I tried, this one give me AT LEAST 54Mbps at 5GHz with 3 of 5 bars strength showing, at about 60 feet and 3 walls away! That’s great range for and bandwidth for 5GHz. I am able to VPN to my office PC and it’s as if I’m literally right there at my machine, which runs a lot of high-powered software development apps like Visual Studio, SQL Server, and ShareaPoint, etc.

  The 2.4 GHz band is very stable and high-powered as well! I’ve been playing with different channel settings (as I can detect other WAN’s in my area and want to avoid interferance) and I found that leaving it either on AUTO or on a channel not being used by others, usually 11, I get a steady 108 – 162 Mbps at my workstation in the garage.

  To use the dual band features though, you will need a dual band adapter. I would have liked to keep my adapter the same brand as my router, just for ease of use and compatibility but I didn’t find a dual band one by Belkin yet so had to go with a NetGear RangeMax adapter. But the router works great with that adapter either way.

  The router comes with other apps like a back up program and a music mover app, but I doubt I will use any of that. If you’re a gamer, it offers great QoS features to set your priorities for either gaming or mere internet browsing!

  Overall, I am very impressed with this router and like I mentioned before, I went through about 5 of these over the last 3 weeks. None gave me the range, power, stability, and printing like this one. I have used Belkin routers in the past, and because of that experience I tended to shy away from N routers UNTIL this new series came out.

  Well done Belkin! Now get busy on that dual band high powered adapter!

  M. Hashem
  
  Torrance, CA