A mere nine months after being announced at CES 2009 in Las Vegas, D-Link is today shipping the Xtreme N Storage router (model DIR-685), probably the first router to incorporate a digital photo frame on the front.
It's only a 3.2-inch color LCD, and not the first router to have a screen, but it is the first that's going to be powered by FrameChannel (which aggregates images from your Flickr, Picasa and Facebook accounts) to display not just pictures but also streaming digital video. The screen will also display the status of the router, Internet connection, and the weather.
A 2.5-inch, 1-terabyte external drive can plug into the side and make the 685 into instant network attached storage (NAS), which can be used to automatically store downloads from BitTorrent. It'll even do FTP file transfers. Or you can plug USB external drives into either of the ports on the router. Or plug in printers or scanners to share them across the network. Plus integrates D-Link's Green tech to use less energy.
What about the actual router part? It's a Wi-Fi Certified, single-band (2.4GHz) 802.11n access point coupled with a four-port Gigabit switch, the usual NAT/SPI firewalls, and Wi-Fi Protected Setup button. It won't come cheap to watch pics or video on a routers, as the 685 costs $299.99 list, but is already selling at Amazon for $249.88.
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