Customer Reviews:
 It's a Beautiful Thing April 8, 2008
S. Gaines
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
New to the world of laptops, high speed and routers. Glad that it was a smooth transition into the world of wireless. Lovin' it!
I do believe this is my first 5 star review. May 8, 2008
M.D.C. (San Diego, CA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
OK.
So I was initially looking at the Wireless-N version of this router, to potentially replace my old WRT54GS (Linksys Wireless G Router with SpeedBooster). That router had problems, admittedly so. It worked, but not as well as I'd liked given my setup. Since all of my devices are either G or B wireless, I figured I would just settle for the G router and save money (this one is almost half the cost of the N router).
For the record I've got a laptop (wireless), media server (wireless), PS3 (wireless), PSP (wireless), DS (wireless), EEE PC (wireless), PS2 (hardwire), 360 (hardwire), printer (hardwire), and DirecTV HR20 (hardwire). Yeah, I know. What's important: the media server is in the master bedroom's closet, far from the router, which is in the living room. With my old router, signal strength got weak through walls, extremely weak. Local network activity was painful, streaming movies from the media center was painful as it would frequently lock up and stutter; thumbnails would not load.
Enter this router. First thing to note: the CD is NOT required. If you're new to wireless connections you may want to just follow the directions and CD, but if you're comfortable with navigating the router web interface, just bypass the CD and set it up like you normally would; it'll work. Setup was quite painless and recognition was fast, I managed to replace my old wireless network in a matter of minutes. There is also a feature that allows for a WiFi Protected Setup with a one-button press, but apparently the receivers require that feature to be built in as well - and none of mine did. Therefore I just ignored it. For those who are setting up for the first time and bought receivers with the feature included, they might find it useful when doing the setup.
I immediately noticed an improvement in the local networking speed. The aforementioned media server is now screaming fast over the network; thumbnails load just as fast as if I'm at the machine, file transfers are nowhere near as slow and streaming content plays with minimal lag. Internet connectivity was also slightly improved on devices that were not close to the router.
There are a couple of issues, not necessarily the router's fault, but more an issue with the way Linksys designs them. First, getting internet connectivity took way too long and was not as easy as it should have been. I had to powercycle my modem to get it to pull the IP information - even though the details should have easily been accessible from the previous router having gotten them. This might be a Time Warner issue rather than a Linksys issue - maybe it sees a different MAC and freaks, but I doubt it. Once I got the IP information, the router still would not give internet connectivity for a minute. I'm using Vista Premium so I can tell when it's "Local", "Internet" or both and it struggled to get both up.
Second, and a minor nitpick at best, the power cord is easily half the size of the WRT54GS. For the life of me I can't understand this. It makes it hard for me to locate the router in a good place, because I like to have the router on the UPS, and by shortening the cord I have to have the router in the middle of the floor. Minor issue, but still a problem for me.
Otherwise, I highly recommend this. It seems they fixed the majority of the problems the previous devices had. I noted that the negative reviews came from people who had support problems; I never call the Bombay support line, so I have nothing bad to say.
Works for Macs - if you go to linksys web site to get the setup July 19, 2008
J. Caleshu
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Of course, it doesn't come with a setup disk for mac, and there seems to be no way to manually set it up using the IP address UNLESS you go to the linksys web site to download the mac os x setup utility here: [...]
Then, it's super quick, worked just fine, no problems whatsoever. Stupid that they don't include the mac setup on the disc they provide, but c'est la vie.
Sharp looking and works very well..A++ March 30, 2008
Michael Fingado (Florida)
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
Bought it from Amazon had it in four days with free shipping and took maybe 10 min to set up. Connection is very good and attennnas are hidden within the router so it looks nice. Best router for the price!
Easiest Router to setup yet! April 9, 2008
Bookworm (Smyrna, Georgia)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I love it! It was easy to setup, my son's Linksys WUSB54gc adapter connected fast, and it's been smooth sailing!
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