The Belkin N300 is the next generation of Belkin routers introduced into the market around the second quarter of 2011 together with Belkin N150, Belkin N450, Belkin N600 DB and Belkin N750 DB. They all seem replacing the previous generation of Belkin Surf, Belkin Play, Belkin Max Play routers. It’s like what’s happened with Linksys that introduces next generation of new Linksys E-series including the Linksys E2500; Linksys E3200 and Linksys E-4200 series.

Typically there must be some improvements when new generation of the routers introduced into the market. Have a look at the comparison table between the previous Belkin Share and new Belkin N300.

Overall Customer Satisfactions

At a glance the previous Belkin Share router has more features compared with the Belkin N300, but the customer satisfaction is relatively low with averagely two stars out of five stars customer ratings. Compared with the new Belkin N300, the customer satisfaction is relatively much better with averagely four stars customer ratings. The number of reviews grows by the time but the trend so far is better.

High Speeds
The previous generation of Belkin Share was powered by wireless N with dual-plane MIMO antenna technology. On the other hand the Belkin N300 is powered by 802.11n with Multi-beams technology for powerful signal strength and maximum coverage. Both routers deliver the high speed of wireless N standards up to 300Mbps ideally.

For wired connection to the routers, both routers support four fast Ethernet ports. You cannot find the gigabit Ethernet ports with this Belkin N300, but you can find gigabit ports for the dual band (DB) versions of the Belkin routers.

USB Port

Unlike the Belkin Share which includes one USB port, the next generation of Belkin N300 doesn’t support USB port. USB port is available on the next generation of Belkin N600 DB and N750 DB. All the Belkin routers which include USB port can be used either for shared storage or shared printer. When you compare with mostly Linksys wireless routers with USB port, they cannot be used to host a printer but a shared storage. Unlike the Linksys routers, Asus routers have the same feature regarding the USB port. Asus routers with USB port can be used to host a shared storage or shared printer for example the next generation of Asus RT-N56U Black Diamond with two USB ports. You can compare this RT-N56U with the Belkin N750 DB which also includes two USB ports for shared printer and shared storage concurrently.

Applications +

Both Belkin Share and Belkin N300 routers include Self-Healing App to automatically detect and resolve network problems as well run the routine maintenance scans for better wireless signal. But Belkin Share with USB port includes two more Apps: Memory-safe and Print-Genie.

With Print-Genie App you can manage the print jobs easier from the computers, print wirelessly from any computers on the network. With Memory-Safe you can choose the files to backup to the storage attach to the router.

Regarding the data backup, if you require a well-managed backup strategy within the network, you can consider Apple Time Capsule with external storage. All you have to do is first time full-copy backup each of the computers to the attached storage and then later the system will backup or update the backup files only if there are some files updates.

Connection Diagram

The following figure shows general diagram when you use Belkin N300 router as the center of your wireless network in home.

When you have completed the setup, you can configure the router via your computer browser by typing the “http://router” – remember no www included. Or you can type in the default IP address (if you don’t change it yet): 192.168.2.1. See also some default router passwords.

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