D-Link fronts up with a plug-in wireless NAS / router combo for travellers
Articles
D-Link Shipping Wireless Mobile Helper – SmallNetBuilder
My Comments
There have been a smattering of “travel routers” released on the market through the past ten years. These devices typically had a Wi-Fi access point and an Ethernet socket and were able to be set up as an access point or router. They were typically pitched at travellers who wanted to share a wired Internet access service, typically in their hotel, amongst Wi-Fi-only devices.
Now D-Link have come back with one of these routers but it also works as a “universal wireless range extender” and an access point that shares files from a USB storage device.
Personally, what I fear of devices like the D-Link DIR-505 is that they could become the “same-old same-old” where they have the same functions for their device class as everyone else but no more. The D-Link device had moved towards an AC-powered device that combines the previous travel-router/access-point model along with the same function model as devices like the Kingston Wi-Drive.
This could be a chance for manufacturers to break from the mould by doing things like making one of these devices become a wireless-broadband travel router, support multiple USB devices or use CIFS (de-facto network-file-transfer standard in desktop operating systems) and DLNA for file and media management.
At least D-Link have taken the step further with this class of device by amalgamating the travel router and the “storage access-point” device classes in to a single device.
