Draytek Vigor 2830Vn review

Looks aren't normally important when you're choosing a router, but the Draytek Vigor 2830Vn is a bit of monster. Then again, it's not designed to be propped up next to a home hi-fi – this device is intended for small business use.

This is made clear by the fact that the ports are located on the front for ease of access, and because the Vigor 2830Vn is bursting at the seams with features.

As well as being ADSL and cable internet compatible, there's the option of having up to three different internet connections active at once: the main ADSL one, an Ethernet port for connecting another modem and a port for adding a 3G modem – which would be useful as a backup if your primary or secondary internet were to fail.

The inclusion of a hardware firewall is good news if you're a regular gamer, because your PC doesn't have to use precious power to process attacks on the software side. It's a fast firewall too, rated at 50MB/s.

You can also create up to four wireless connections, so different groups of people can access it, and set up the router so users can have their own internet access, which can be restricted by time or the websites they can view.

The installation was one of the least intuitive in this test, with no automatic setup to speak of. You have to choose the router settings you need manually, and in our case, finding the right settings from our ISP took a huge amount of time.

Performance is good, although not quite as good as some cheaper routers. Our 1GB test file took two minutes 40 seconds to transfer between PCs at two metres, and six minutes 40 seconds at the 10-metre test point.

It might be feature-rich, but the average person isn't going to see the benefit, and there are better and faster options for the money.

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