TRENDnet TEW-690AP wireless access point has a theoretical 450Mbps top speed, a real $200 price

It's a sad fact of our digital lives that no matter how stylish we make our daily-used devices, we'll still need some antenna-riddled ogre in the corner of the room to blast out the WiFi goodness. Enter TRENDnet's latest contender, the TEW-690AP (even its name betrays an absolute lack of charisma), which has three spatial streams per antenna to deliver a max theoretical throughput of 450Mbps. It goes up to a full gigabit should you find any reason to connect via its wired Ethernet port, while a few extra bells and whistles -- like a repeater mode, WiFi Protected Setup with compatible devices, and up to four unique, encrypted SSIDs per wireless band -- complete the $200 value proposition. Whether you say yay or nay, look out for more from these guys at CES, they're promising to announce some more "first to market" wireless innovations.