TRENDnet Releases "World's Smallest" Travel Router

Travel often? Travel with more than one person often? Sick and tired of being tethered to a desk at a hotel that offers only wired Internet? Well, TRENDnet's latest wireless router might be just for you. The company touts it as being the world's smallest travel router, which is quite a big claim, but if you take a look at the product page on their website, I have no issue with believing it (the LAN port on the back seems to take up only 1/5th of its total width).

It's the overall size that makes this router so desirable, as it's "so small, it disappears in your front pocket", and what's not to like about that? One thing I absolutely hate while travelling is filling more than one suitcase, or simply weighing my luggage down with various electronics. I've often brought full-blown routers with me on business trips, and they're really cumbersome. But this one is so small, that I could easily fit it in the same bag as my laptop.

This mini router also happens to offer 300Mbps operating speeds (802.11 n), which means at it's highest transfer rate, you should actually be able to transfer files from one PC to the next faster than you could if you were using a USB thumb drive or external hard drive. Of course, the company also keeps security in mind, along with easy setup, and if you think this will cost you out the rear, don't... it's only ~$60 USD.

TRENDnet has sent me one of these to test out, and with Intel's Developer Forum taking place next month, I'll have a perfect opportunity to see how it fares in exactly the scenario it's designed for.

The 300Mbps Wireless N Travel Router Kit offers a high performance router that is so small it disappears in your front pocket. Enjoy the freedom of wireless n while on the go and share a single Internet connection with multiple users. This compact kit fits into the most overstuffed luggage and contains everything needed to quickly create a 300Mbps wireless network.

Site Content Updates!

It's been far too long since we've had "real" content posted on our site, so I thought our readers deserved to know what's going on, and also when things are going to ramp back up. The good news, is that the answer to the latter thought is "soon!", so don't worry. Allow me to apologize to everyone for failing to deliver all of the content you've come to expect on our site over the course of the last four years.

As mentioned in the past, I've been working hard on wrapping up methodologies for absolutely every product-type we've had, and as I've been working on those, I haven't been able to dedicate hard time to other content. If I do, then it means the methodology stuff continues to get pushed behind. It's a vicious circle of sorts. To make the timing worse, our other staffers have been dealing with life's little pleasures (aka: unforeseen occurrences and other demands), which of course doesn't help our situation.

Things are slowly coming back together, however, and our GPU re-benchmarking is just about done. I'm wrapping up a couple of ATI cards as we speak, and once those are done, I'm going to quickly re-benchmark each ATI card once again to, what I like to call "double-verify", our results. A review featuring our new methodology will be posted next Monday, and it will feature Gigabyte's Radeon HD 4770.

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin - Recent recruit to our GPU suite.

Speaking of methodologies, don't miss an article posted just the other day which takes an in-depth look at how we handle our testing here at Techgage. So far, we only have information on how we install Windows, and also benchmark our graphics cards, but in the future, it will feature methodologies for everything we touch, from processors to motherboards to storage and so forth.

Once again, apologies for having such a slow content cycle recently. When I decided to take on the monumental task of revamping all of our methodologies at once, I sure didn't expect everything else to work against me. Lesson learned... if something can go wrong, chances are it will! The good news is that with our revamped methodologies, our benchmarking results will be even more accurate than ever, along with our resulting analysis. I have never been more confident in how we handle our testing here, and I can't wait to see all of that reflected in our content!

Tech Roundup - August 20, 2009

Motherboards & Processors
• MSI X58M - Neoseeker

Displays & Video Cards
• Gigabyte GTS 250 1GB and 9600GT 512MB - PC Perspetive
• Samsung SyncMaster P2350 LCD Monitor - CCE Reviews
• XFX ATI Radeon HD 4770 - i4u

Memory & Storage
• Kingston SSDNow V+ Series 64GB SSD - TweakTown
• Super Talent Pico Mini 16GB USB Drive - Bjorn3D

Peripherals & Gadgets
• Sennheiser IE 6 Noise Isolating In-Ear-Canalphone - ModSynergy
• Xtracpads Ripper XXL Gaming Mousepad - Overclockers HQ

Cooling
• Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus Socket 1156 CPU Cooler - FrostyTech
• Evercool Rifling Fan 80mm RF-8 - Overclockers Club
• Noctua NH-U9B CPU Cooler - Verdis Reviews
• Scythe Zipang 2 CPU Cooler - DeXgo

Chassis & Power Supplies
• B-Gears B-Envi HTPC And Gaming Chassis - Overclockers HQ
• In Win X-Fighter Mid-Tower Chassis - Modders-Inc
• Nexus RX-1K 1000 Watt Power Supply Unit - OverclockersHQ
• Thermaltake Element T Chassis - PureOverclock

Competitions, Complete Systems & Et cetera
• Hawking HomeRemote Pro Starter Kit - Digital Trends
• Mesh Matrix II 955BE Hush Gaming PC - Overclock3D