2. Basic Features

The FR24 is housed in a black plastic case with a footprint about the size of a typical hard-cover novel. All indicators are along the front edge of the top panel and include Link/Activity/Speed for each of the four LAN ports, Link/Activity/Speed for each WAN, Power and Status. All LED's were bright and viewable from a wide angle, with link Speed indicated by the color of each LED.

The four switched 10/100 LAN ports are on the rear panel, along with two 10/100 WAN ports, power socket, Reset button. All LAN ports are auto MDI/MDI-X, eliminating the need for an Uplink port or Normal/Uplink switch for port expansion.

Hawking includes a printed Quick Installation Guide that I thought came up short on a number of counts, but I'll get into that more in the next section.

Opening up the FR24 confirmed my suspicion that, similar to many of the current crop of new-generation routers, it is based on the ADMtek 5106 Home Gateway Controller. The router had a very clean internal design, and although the ADMtek chip had no heatsink, seemed to run cool to the touch.