Razer portal review in Spanish (full analysis)

Razer Portal is an advanced router, which reaches the market with a feature aimed at reducing the congestion of WiFi networks, and thereby improving the performance offered by them. To this is added a minimalist design that will not clash anywhere, and a really simple configuration with less experienced users in mind.

Do you want to know how the first router of the leading peripheral company performs? Go to the fridge and get a cool Coke (or your favorite drink) that we start?

We thank Razer for the trust placed in giving us the router for analysis.

Razer Portal technical features

Unboxing and design

Razer has opted for a luxury presentation to send users its first Razer Portal router, the router is presented in a large cardboard box with the company's corporate colors, among which black and green predominate. We also see the certificates that support it.

While in the back we have all the most interesting technical features and news. From the router.

Once we open the box we find the following bundle:

Razer Portal Router Power Supply for Europe and UK Quick Guide Cable or RJ45 cable

Razer Portal is a device with a very minimalist design that will look good in every home, the router is manufactured with a high quality glossy white plastic body, as a noteworthy element only the Portal logo is observed, as it does not include external antennas. It is one of the simplest routers in its design, if not the most

As for wired connectivity, the Razer Portal offers a Gigabit WAN port and four Gigabit LAN ports, two USB 2.0 ports are also included, which will serve to connect some device such as a hard disk, to share content.

The absence of USB 3.0 ports , will make us not enjoy the maximum speed, when it comes to sharing files from an external storage medium, we will have to test how the USB 2.0 issue works.

On the back it includes holes to mount the router on the wall, something that will be highly appreciated by some users.

Hidden within the Razer Portal is a Qualcomm QCA9563 processor, at a frequency of 750MHz, this chipset offers support for the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, with maximum transfer rates of 600Mbps and 1, 734Mbps respectively. These bands use a total of seven before internal to offer excellent coverage.

Razer Portal also offers two additional antennas to detect the presence of radar. If it detects the use of radar in the proximity, the router makes a change from the restricted channels to the unrestricted in a perfect way, thanks to which users will not experience a cut in the connection to the Wi-Fi network.

Setting up the Razer Portal is very easy, just download the Portal app on your iOS or Android device and follow the on-screen instructions. The application allows you to manage some aspects of the router, and add a second unit to create a meshed network.

More traditional users can also configure the router using the web configuration interface, which is also very easy to use. It offers all the features that most users want, like parental controls , QoS, VPN, dynamic DNS, network file sharing, and port forwarding.

Technologies to consider

The Razer Portal is a gaming router created by the young company Ignition Design Labs. This device has been designed to solve one of the most common problems in today's WiFi networks, congestion, which is detrimental to performance. It is also a device that was born with the premise of offering the simplest configuration possible, in this way no user will have problems to get the most out of it.

WiFi networks are currently very affected by congestion, just check the wireless network adapter on your PC and you will see how a large number of networks appear in addition to yours. This congestion makes the stability and speed of WiFi networks not optimal, especially if the neighbors use the same channel as you.

Razer Portal is a device specially designed to avoid congestion thanks to its Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) function and FastLanes technology. These two features allow the Razer Portal to use 5 GHz channels that are normally reserved for radar use by the military and meteorological services. These channels cannot be used by conventional routers, since they require strict requirements as they are a restricted spectrum, for example, they must be able to detect when a radar is nearby to clear the spectrum.

This router includes the hardware needed to scan these radar reserved channels and is capable of using them when they are not being busy, something that frees you from congestion and should result in better overall performance. This feature requires client devices that support DFS to be exploited, something that is true in the products released in the last two.

The Portal can also form a mesh network with a second device, allowing users to extend their Wi-Fi coverage with a single SSID. Portal claims that a single router can cover an area of 280 square meters.

Testing equipment

To make the performance measurements we will use the following components:

1 Asus PCE-AC88 Client.Team 1, with Intel i219v network card.Team 2, with Killer E2500 network card.JPerf version 2.0.

Wireless Performance

In this case we are lucky to have a 3T3R client and we will be able to exploit this router to the best of its ability. This is the PCE-AC88 that we have already analyzed, so it has a Broadcom chip, which has shown better performance than the Quantenna chip-based client that we use to test against your most direct rivals. The yields obtained have been the following:

Router - Equipment in the same room: 603 Mbit / s in download Router - Equipment in Room at 15 meters with several walls: 315 Mbit / s in download.

Firmware and configuration

The Razer Portal router does not have a quick wizard for its configuration. So we must access the router manually and configure it to our liking from the firmware itself. How do I know the IP of my router?

Open the Windows console and type:

ipconfig

We see that the gateway is 192.168.8.1. Knowing this data, we will write in our browser (accepting access to an unsecured website):

192.168.8.1

The firmware and wifi passwords are written on the base of our laptop. In our case to access the control panel is "password" (very original:-)). Once inside we will find the following interface:

The interface is very minimalist but above all intuitive. We have many options to highlight: system status, Wi-Fi configuration, WAN, internal network, DNS, VLAN, firewall, VPN, updates and administration.

To be the first router that Razer launches it is quite good, but it still needs to debug some details. That we are sure that with new updates will achieve greater performance and interface.

Final words and conclusion about the Razer Portal router

Razer is encouraged to launch a gaming router to meet the needs of the most enthusiastic users. It incorporates an AC2400 chip (Same as that of the Asus AC87U), 9 internal antennas, minimalist firmware and coverage in both 2.4 and 5 GHz in home use.

The lack of a quick assistant squeaks a bit, since it is quite necessary for those users who do not know much about networks. Also, when having the internal antennas the Wifi coverage is lower than that of other routers that bring external antennas. This is noticeable in less stability over long distances.

We recommend you read the best routers on the market

Currently we find it in online stores for 199 euros, although sometimes it has been seen for about 170 euros. We believe that for this last price it can be a very interesting option, since it has all the ingredients to succeed: design, optimization to play, a decent price and that we know that Razer will give good support to its product.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ NICE DESIGN AND A VERY WELL STABLE IN MODERN SALONS	- YOU DO NOT HAVE A QUICK WIZARD TO INSTALL THE ROUTER. DIRECTLY YOU ENTER WITH A FACTORY PASSWORD.
+ GOOD PERFORMANCE	- NOT HAVING EXTERNAL ANTENNAS THE COVERAGE IS IMPROVABLE.
+ ENOUGH CONNECTIONS.	- FAILURE TO DEBUG FIRMWARE