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With its retro sci-fi design the SAR-840G may not be to everyone’s taste but what it loses in style points it certainly makes up for with wireless performance. Along with Belkin and Draytek it consistently held a podium position in all tests and average transfer rates diminished only marginally in the longer distance tests. Unfortunately, a fly in the ointment is the lack of support for the more secure WPA standard so you can only use 64 and 128bit encryption to secure wireless traffic. However, businesses could implement further access controls using 802.1x and RADIUS or MD5 server authentication which requires a valid username and password to access the router services. Another drawback is the SAR-840G only offers a NAT (network address translation) firewall which simply maps all LAN IP addresses to the WAN address effectively hiding your local users from external view.

The retro styling extends to the clunky web management interface although it is fairly straightforward to navigate and is backed up with good documentation. Plenty of access controls are provided as you can stop the router responding to incoming PINGs from the WAN port and block external management access or only allow it on a specific port. Ranges of LAN IP addresses can be stopped from accessing the Internet and LAN access to port numbers and applications such as FTP, SMTP and POP3 can be blocked or enabled. Internet access for all LAN users can also be blocked after a certain period of time has elapsed or by applying a time zone schedule by selecting from twelve preset two-hour periods. Even more Internet access controls can be implemented for up to eight PCs by creating a list of Windows names or MAC addresses and applying daily time slots to them.

MAC address filtering is more varied as you can use lists to either permit or deny wireless access. A useful feature is that the router displays associated MAC addresses making it easy to create lists. A separate filter list is also available for controlling Internet access for LAN users by their MAC address. Web site blocking is more basic as the router only supports eight entries although you can use partial names to cover a wider range of sites.

Verdict

The style council is out on the SAR-840G but it does offer high levels of Internet access controls. Unfortunately, the sparkling wireless performance is let down by a lack of SPI firewall and no support for WPA.

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