Manage updates with the Download App
I didn't find these new features impressive, however. The Parent Control features offers a quick way to set the Web filtering between four preset levels. Unfortunately it doesn't offer the option to customize each level or control what clients in the network will be affected. This means, once a level is set, all computers in the local network will have the same level of filtering. In other words, if you want to make your Internet connection safe for young kids, it'll be almost useless for all adult users connected to the same network.
Similarly, the IntelliStream feature is designed to "prioritize high-bandwidth and low-latency services such as voice, video, and games for the best possible online experience." You can just turn it on and it will prioritize the traffic based on how fast the connection to the Internet is. In my testing, however, the router failed to test how fast my connection was. In the end, I had to manually enter the upload and download speeds; after that, I didn't see any difference between having this feature enabled or disabled.
The rest of the router's supposedly special features, which it shares with previous models, are just nifty-sounding gimmicks, such as Self-Healing or Video Mover. The former allows users to set the router to automatically restart itself daily or weekly, and the latter is basically a media-streaming feature available when there's external storage plugged into the router's USB ports. Both of these are limited, however; for example, you can't make the router restart only when there's no Internet activity (so you won't be disconnected during a gaming section, for example), and you can't customize the streaming feature at all, other than turning it on or off.
Other than that, the 1200 DB offers the standard features found on almost all wireless routers, including virtual server, which enables a computer to be set up for a particular service such as being an FTP or HTTP server; MAC address filtering, DYDNS, and so on.
Performance
As an N600 router, the Belkin AC 1200 DB's performance was decent in my testing, with the 5Ghz band offering much better performance than the 2.4Ghz band. In the close range (15 feet) throughput test, the router scored 116Mbps on the 5Ghz band, but just 36Mbps on the 2.4Ghz band. When I increased the distance to 100 feet, these numbers fell to 79Mbps and 9.6Mbps on the 5Ghz band and 2.4Ghz band, respectively.
It's important to note that my office, where the routers are tested, is saturated with lots of Wi-Fi devices; that might interfere with the performance of the reviewed devices, especially on the 2.4Ghz band. Still, in this environment, the router passed the 24-hour stress test on both bands, during which time it didn't disconnect once.
As an 802.11ac router, the new Belkin was the first I've seen that supports a dual-stream 802.11ac standard (all others support the three-stream setup), so it was hard for me to say how well it performed. It wasn't slow, but, as expected, it was the slowest among all the 802.11ac routers I've tested. The router scored 163Mbps at close range and just 57Mbps at 100 feet. It's interesting that in long range the router's 802.11ac performance was lower than that of its Wireless-N. Note that this might be because of the media bridge I used for the test, the only media bridge currently available, the WLI-H4-D130 from Buffalo.
When coupled with an external USB drive, the router's network storage performance was about the same as that of the Belkin Advance N900 and wasn't fast enough to really provide a viable network storage solution.
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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Range | |
Throughput |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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Range | |
Throughput |
Conclusion
Supporting the dual-stream setup of both 802.11n and 802.11ac Wi-Fi standards, the Belkin AC 1200 DB Wi-Fi Dual-Band AC+ Gigabit Router, though it offers decent performance, holds no greater appeal over any existing solid N600 or N900 routers on the market right now.
