Belkin Play N600 HD Wireless Dual Band N+ Router

I have an older, wired Canon printer that I wanted to print to wirelessly from my MacBook Pro. I considered purchasing an Airport router, but they're pretty expensive. After doing some research, I discovered the Belkin Play N600 HD wireless router and decided to give it a try.I will admit that the initial setup took a lot longer than I thought it would (and I'm a pretty tech-saavy guy). Once everything was setup, I was rather impressed with how well it worked. I've been using the router for several weeks now and I haven't had any connection issues at all. I'm able to connect throughout my 1500 square foot home with no degradation or dropped connections. The dual band is a nice feature, allowing me to connect to the higher band with my newer devices and still connect to the lower band with my older ones.The wireless printing is achieved through a piece of software that Belkin provides. Keep in mind that you have to install it on EVERY computer you want to connect to the printer (if you're just wanting to use the router feature only, you won't need the software). You can only have one computer connected to the printer at a time, which is not too big of an issue for me. When I'm connected and I send a print job to the printer, it connects pretty quickly. The only drawback I've noticed is that my Mac won't automatically go to sleep while I'm using the Belkin software (again, not a big issue but a little annoying). I didn't use the external USB hard drive connection because I'm content with Apple's Time Machine app (again, if you want to hook up an external hard drive to the router, you have to use the Belkin software to run backups).Overall, I've been very pleased with the results! I realize that when this printer finally goes kaput, I'll probably replace it with a wireless printer thereby eliminating the need to use the printer connection. But even when that happens, I'll still have a very solid router!

*************************************************************UPDATE. 1/20/2014So far router has been working excellent, all torrents are downloaded directly to usb flash drives in the ports on the back of the router (choose flash drives rather than hdd just to keep down the electricity bill)rock solid, totally recommended*************************************************************I bought this router because all the specs and usb ports and the incredible price, it is true that it does not have those fancy lights and design as others but instead works great.I dont even bother to play around with the belking firmware, right after taking out of the box I flashed ddwrt mini and the the big build and then tomato********Just in case, the correct process to flash to tomato is flashing to ddwrt first and the to tomato:1. 30/30/30 reset2. unplug power cable from router3.pres de wps button4. plug the power cable back in WHILE STILL HOLDING THE WPS BUTTON5. Wait for about 10 seconds, still pressing the button!!6. on Chrome/IE (Not FIREFOX) go to 192.168.2.17. on the web site you get, upload the mini build from ddwrt (go to their website to download it and choose the correct build)8. wait for about 8 minutos. Do not close the broswer window or disconnect the lan or power cable9. another 30/30/30 reset10. log in into ddwrt at 192.168.1.111. go to the firmware upgrade option in ddwrt12. upload the big build13. wait for about 8 minutos14. another 30/30/3015. go to the firmware upgrade option again in ddwrt16. this time you will need to add the tomato build (i like shibby builds), remember to change the tomato build file name to extension .bin17. another 30/30/3018. log into 192.168.1.1 (defautl username and password admin admin)19. enjoy you are in tomatousb***************Once on tomato you get a lot of features and are really easy to set up, I use this router now as a torrent machine so i dont have to leave my computer on all the time.performace is good and is rock solid, if something happens in the feature will update this review.

Seems to work okay, difficult setting up security log in and protection