UGate Help Page

The headline above just about sums up the UGate 3200P.  We were provided with an early production sample, and it worked pretty much like the UG3200 that we tested last August (read the review here).  

The firmware was still under development and the admin screens had a new, cleaner look as shown in the screen shot below.

Poking around in the admin interface revealed some new features:

• URL filter

• Incoming Access Log

• Outgoing Access Log

Although these are welcome features, the logs still need work.  The Outgoing access log just showed IP address and Port number... a little cryptic for my taste.  There also doesn't appear to be any way to log to syslog or SNMP capability for saving the logs, or any way to clear them either.   

The 3200P's printserver worked well and does support bi-directional printers.  It's LPR compliant and can be used without any additional software on systems that support this method (WinNT4, Win2000, Linux, etc.).  If you're running a Win9X system, Maxgate supplies a Print Port driver application that you can install to acess the printer.  I had no problems using the driver to print to my Brother MFC 4450 multi-function laser printer.  Note that I didn't find printer status in any of the admin screens, but Maxgate says they're working on this.

The 3200P looks like another solid router from Maxgate, but it enters a field where the competition has established a sizable beachhead.  Although the SMC 7 port Barricade doesn't support bi-directional printers, it does have a serial WAN port for use with dialup or ISDN modems, and it's priced significantly lower ($160 vs. $247 on-line pricing as of 12/19/2000).  Looks like Maxgate has some pricing work to do!