Ok, so this one might not be quite as exciting, but I wanted to let you guys know that I got the new Cisco-Linksys E3000 wireless router. I did a lot of research on this router before I decided to make the purchase, and I’m very glad that I got it. Let me give you the low down on the specs. It’s a wireless B/G/N dual band gigabit wired router. This means that all of my older equipment with the wireless G connectivity goes on one radio band (2.4 GHz), and my new wireless N devices go on the second radio band (5 GHz) so that they’re not competing with each other. With this router, my wireless N devices can actually achieve speeds of 300 Mbps (for those of you not so technical, wireless G devices can usually get 54 Mbps), and my wired devices that are gigabit capable will connect at gigabit speeds (~1000 Mbps). I decided to go with this one because of my Windows Home Server being connected to my network, I want to be able to stream HD video and music over the network without any hiccups, and this bad boy gives me the fattest pipes I can have to get the data through.
Now that that’s out of the way, let me go over some of the neat features that the E3000 has that some others don’t. Because of the dual wireless bands, I have each band on their own SSID, one is labeled as 5GHz and the other is just the regular SSID. This avoids confusion for me when connecting the devices. The E3000 also has a separate “guest access” option that broadcasts a third SSID that allows guests to access your Internet connection, but not your other devices/files on the network. This is pretty sweet, and this SSID unencrypted so when guests connect, they’re met with a webpage asking for the guest access password. Kind of like when you go to hotels. This keeps the neighbors from stealing my bandwidth, but lets me give the access to people I want to. There’s also a USB port on the back of the E3000 for a media server function. I tried this with a 40GB external hard drive. The router recognized the drive and it was available on the network, but the file transfer speed was slower than if the drive were shared on another computer on the network.
For those of you who are not very technical, the router comes with the newly revamped Cisco connect software on a CD that allows for a very easy setup option. It doesn’t allow you to access all of the features of the router, but it’s a very simplified setup method. The usual web interface is available for more advanced settings.
There has been one major concern of mine with this router: it gets hot. I don’t mean a little warm, I mean hot. It’s concerned me more than once, I even considered turning the router upside down to allow it to dissipate heat a little better, but I nixed that idea because it was unsightly.
Over all, I’m very impressed with this router, and if you’re in need of a dual band router with gigabit Ethernet, I would recommend it in a heartbeat.
If you’d like to purchase this router, get it from my Amazon aStore here: http://astore.amazon.com/rathofage-20/detail/B003B48UQ8
If you’d like more detailed specifications, visit the Linksys-Cisco page at http://home.cisco.com/en-us/wireless/linksys/
This is a real stylish device. I tested it out when it was on exhibit locally, but it is not worth the cost in my judgment. It runs Windows XP without a hitch just the keyboard was a bit tough to use.
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