Cisco Valet

Bottom Line

The Cisco Valet is specifically intended for rookie users and the nontech-savvy, and everything about the Valet -- including its marketing as a wireless hotspot -- is designed to be nonthreatening. The Cisco Valet is advertised as the simplest router to use, and reviewers say it lives up to its promise. It's a wireless router for those who want to establish a wireless network at a low price and with minimal effort and knowledge.

Ease of Use

Designed for novice network users. What the Cisco Valet lacks in power it more than makes up for in style and ease of use. Professional reviewers and users alike praise its Easy Setup Key. Just plug this 1 GB USB stick into your computer, and three mouse clicks later, you're connected to the Valet.

Its packaging appears to be designed to appeal to the computer rookie, with bullet points highlighting the Valet's features and no mention of the intimidating jargon -- such as speed, range and bandwidth -- usually associated with routers.

Cisco used designers who had previously worked on the simple and well-liked Flip Camcorder, and reviewers praise the simplicity of the router's installation using a USB setup key. Craig Ellison of SmallNetBuilder.com says the Valet has the "smoothest and simplest setup" of any router he has tested. Users posting reviews at Amazon.com agree; most found setup to be as easy as advertised. David Pogue of The New York Times loved the setup process but says the supporting documentation is full of jargon.

Performance

Adequate single-band functioning. The Cisco Valet operates in only the 2.4 GHz band at 300 Mbps, which means users may experience signal interference from other devices that use this band, such as garage door openers. There's no USB port, but the Valet does have 4 Ethernet LAN ports. In tests at SmallNetBuilder.com, a highly technical computer review site, the unit's speed was slower than most other wireless routers, and throughput dropped to barely usable in some locations. Despite this, Tim Higgins says the Valet provides adequate coverage for most homes for browsing and email.

Features

Basic features with no bells and whistles. The Cisco valet basic single-band wireless router has none of the bells and whistles of more expensive and more complex routers. The Valet has 4 Ethernet LAN ports -- not GbE ports -- but no USB ports. This limits the connections you can make to the router.

Its features include parental controls and guest networking. Parents can block specific domains and set time limits for their children's Internet access, and Katherine Boehret of The Wall Street Journal finds the Valet's controls especially easy to use. The guest network has built-in password protection.