netgear

[nappyaddict]

what is the difference between these 2 routers because they look the same to me!!
1
2

Also it says something about connecting it to a power supply. what does this mean? i thought the only thing it had to connect to was the phone socket?

One is larger capacity - 1Gb and 2 is a small version. Yep they have a power supply ac/dc that plugs in normally. For there will be a time in the future when you'll have to perform a hard re-set i.e. switch off the router to get it to pickup the dsl again. I speak from experience . I can tell you're getting excited about the wifi.

most of them need to be plugged in to the mains to work (as opposed to say a usb modem which takes power from the pc).

One is a gigabit capable switch (10/100/1000) - you probably don't need that - your pc probably only has 10/100 - which is standard now. It is unlikely most home pcs will have gigabit for quite a few years.

If you maybe want to do a lot of game playing between home pcs that are gigabit enabled (eg gigabit ethernet cards) - then you would make use of it. If you mainly want to connect to the internet then most broadband modems are not even capable of 100 (megabit), let alone gigabit communication - so no need to buy the "better" router/switch.