Belkin Play Max ADSL router

Wireless routers are commonplace these days, but Belkin has made a big effort to make its new Play Max model easy for anyone to set up and use – even those with no previous experience of home networking.

It also includes several extra app (see below) that help users make the most of the router’s features.

The router itself is fairly conventional; it’s a standard wired and wireless router that works with the fastest current versions of each connection.

It has a built-in ADSL modem that connects to your home’s ADSL phone socket (there is a separate model for those with cable internet), four network ports for those ordinary wired connections, and two USB ports into which you can plug a USB printer for sharing it over the network, or a hard disk or memory stick for distributing files over the network.

Setting up the router was straightforward – it comes out of the box covered in labels indicating which cables go into which sockets, and the setup program on the supplied CD automatically configured the router for use with our broadband Internet account, so all we had to do was enter the username and password for our account.

Cleverly, the wireless network can be switched off automatically at set times when you will be out of the house. It also provides a ‘guest’ network that provides visitors access to the internet but prevents access to computers on your local network.

The setup program also installs includes several apps that provide extra features. These include a simple backup program, Memory Safe, that can copy files onto a memory stick or USB hard disk plugged into the router.

And the Print And Storage Manager allows users to easily share those hard disks or printers with other people on the network.

The Daily DJ program that creates music playlists was not terribly exciting, but the Music Mover software is more useful. This allows the user to stream music across the home network to a device such as a games console attached to your TV or a dedicated media streamer.

It also comes with a Bittorrent program to search for and download video material from the Internet using the router, without having to have a PC switched on, though we could have done without the advertising all over the latter.

Unfortunately, Belkin has not paid quite as much attention to all these apps as it has to the router itself. The PDF manual supplied (not printed) skims over the various apps without really explaining how they work, leaving you to figure them out for yourself.

As a result the Play Max isn’t quite as user-friendly as it claims to be. However, if you are not interested in the apps then you can buy the cheaper Play router, which dispenses with most of the extra software and costs £30 less.