Introduction
Viewsonic Wireless Media Gateway | |
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Summary | 802.11g wireless router with UPnP-aware NAS. Also comes in 80GB model |
Update | None |
Pros | • Small size
• Streaming media server • Includes print server • 802.11g support with WEP |
Cons | • Admin interface open to Internet by default
• Spotty documentation • Occassional wireless signal loss • Can't set file or user permissions • Limited printer support |
In my previous review, I looked at the Viewsonic WMA100, which is a multimedia adapter designed to display digital media content on your TV and home audio system. But sometimes it's not convenient to tie up your computer just to watch a movie or listen to music and it turns out that Viewsonic has a solution to that problem too.
In this review, I'll take a look at Viewsonic's server companion device to the WMA120. The Viewsonic WMG120 combines an 802.11g wireless router with a built-in 120 GB file server. Its primary purpose is to serve content to the WMA100 without tying up your PC, but it can also act as a full wireless router, complete with print server.
The WMG120 is styled much like the WMA100, i.e. a squarish gray box that at first glance looks like a typical home router / access point. But on closer examination, the height of the box tells you it's a bit different than what you'd normally find. The extra height of the device is designed to hold an internal hard drive, and a look at the back of the device (Figure 1) shows you another difference - two USB ports used for a connecting a printer or for serving up content from a flash drive.
Figure 1: The back of the WMG120
Figure 2 is a shot of the WMG120's innards. That's the same Conexant PRISM-based 11g radio board used in the WMA100, but the design uses an Intel IXP420 Network Processor instead of the Sigma Design EM8551 Media Processor.