So, I found myself on Amazon.com recently and persuaded by something there to write a review on a D-Link DIR-655 Wireless Router I had purchased a few months back. I happened to be very pleased with the product and planned on giving it 5 stars, but I noticed – although 4 and 5 stars heavily outweighed the others – quite a few 1 star reviews so I wanted to see what the others were saying. After reading review after review by unsatisfied customers complaining about technical support offered by the company, and a few legitimate beefs with the product, I wrote my review:
I can't help but laugh every time I read a review of a tech product by someone who has no business trying to do what they are trying to do. This is, for all intents and purposes, a router! with all of the big boy features that a router should have, BUT yes, in a consumer product, and Amazon will and does sell it to anyone with the cashe to purchase it. Unfortunately there is no aptitude test to keep most of you from buying it. So, "caveat emptor" but NOT because this is a bad - or even potentially bad - product, but because it does a lot of stuff that the average joe blow computer user hasn't a clue how to use or why.
I cannot comment on the DLink customer support, but can only imagine it is probably as bad as all the complainers have said, maybe worse. Again, you are talking about a piece of technology that companies offer full blown college courses and credentials to learn how to configure properly, and trying to explain these concepts over the phone to an obliviate can be somewhat taxing if not impossible. And yes, I can see where a support person would just eventually get fed up with you.
In DLink's defense, they have tried - best they can - to develop a "plug and play" solution to get this configured for you. But here is the bottom line for those who have written something like "it works with Vista!" or some other such moronic thing. A router doth not care what operating system you have, and you doth not need to install ANYTHING on your computer to make this thing work! It's a router! It simply routes packets from point a to point b. If your computer isn't configured properly, you may have problems, but don't blame the router. It's more than likely doing EXACTLY what you told it to do!
That said - [stepping down off the milk crate] - I bought this router because I was thoroughly pissed off at Linksys/Cisco for making a competing product that truly does NOT work, but that is a different story. Once I got this router, I have NEVER had a bad thing to say about it. I run anywhere from 4 to 7 computers through it, both wired and wireless, running Vista 32 and 64, XP, Windows 2003 server, Linux, open BSD and yes, even a flippin' Mac on rare occasions when I really need a hair-cut and simply don't have the time, so I figure I’ll just pull my hair out one strand at a time for a few hours while struggling to find the right mouse button.
Anyway, this thing is rock solid, has great wireless range, and is easy to configure (when you know what you are doing, or at least have some technical aptitude.) I won’t say you must be a tech geek, but SOME aptitude will greatly help you during your travels through wireless security options, port forwarding, and firewall settings. This or any other product like it, simply isn’t made to be “plug and play” those that have given this anything less that 4 stars either got a bad one – not out of the realm of possibility – or simply have no business trying to do this themselves. This is a prefect opportunity to hire the geek squad if you don’t know what you are doing, but don’t blame the product if you have trouble. In the immortal words from the movie, Mr. Mom, “You’re doing it wrong.”
Oh, I Ganja!
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