It’s the router that has it all – ADSL, wireless, Voice over IP, and a face only a mother could love.

The Zyxel Prestige is serious business. You can tell by the no-nonsense black breezeblock design, the baffling array of flickering green and yellow ’60s sci-fi LEDs, and the way this router kicks out enough heat to mildly blister an unwary hand. There’s none of the shameless Apple-aping of rival networking products, or even the remotest interest in lounge-friendly miniaturisation. This fella’s here to do its job, not to show off.

Indeed, actions speak far louder than stylish silver casings, and this plastic colossus has a lot of action. ADSL modem, LAN router, wireless access point, firewall and Voice Over IP are all crammed into its room temperature boosting frame. There’s no end of rivals that include those first four features, but VoIP – in this case even enabling you to plug in a conventional analogue phone – is a relative newie that we’re expecting to become increasingly common. Being able to use a proper telephone instead of an unwieldy PC headset and an on-screen control panel is a refreshing improvement. Better yet, you can attach two different telephones, each with their own SIP (sesssion initiation protocol) account and phone number; no more second phone lines.

This makes the Prestige especially ideal if you work from home and want an office number and a personal number. Unfortunately, the VoIP support is for the SIP standard, rather than current net call darling Skype, so you’ll have to plump for a lesser known service such as Sipgate (www.sipgate.co.uk). SIP is arguably the cheaper and better method, but lacks the ease of Skype.

Speaking of ease, if you’re not particularly au fait with setting up routers or broadband modems, you’re likely to struggle with the complicated configuration interface of the Prestige. Granted, it all works and offers a staggering amount of control, but brace yourself for a long night reading help files. The complexity comes with one exception: a zero configuration mode for getting the Zyxel to work with your broadband account. If your ISP doesn’t require any more complicated settings (Wanadoo, we’re looking at you and your oh-so-specific DNS servers), as soon as you connect PC to router and load up your browser, you’re simply presented with a box asking for your ADSL username and password. If you don’t want to set up firewall rules, wireless or VoIP, you’ll never have to worry about dealing with the terrifying setup interface – but then buying this particular router would have been essentially futile.

It’s a doozy of a wi-fi router, too. While not up to the range of Belkin’s MIMO Pre-N router, the dual antennas means your wireless network will cover more of the building. It’s also remarkably feature-packed, ideal for home offices – but just keep in mind, your interior decorator will stop talking to you if you buy one.

Zyxel Prestige 2602HW $339
For: Myriad of functions; exhaustive setup options; good range
Against: Setup is a complete dog; not for novices; very expensive
Verdict: Everything under one roof, although Zyxel really needs to work on its aesthetics.