Cisco-Linksys WRT160N Wireless-N Broadband Router
by Linksys
Our Price: $119.96
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Category: CE
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Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: LinksysAudio: English (Original Language)
Format: CD
Platform: Windows
Model: WRT160N
Product features:
- Internet-sharing Router and 4-port Switch, with a built in speed and range enhanced Wireless Access Point
- MIMO technology uses multiple radios to create a robust signal that travels farther and reduces dead spots
- Much faster than Wireless-G, but also works great with Wireless-G and -B devices
- Wireless signals protected by wireless encryption, and your network protected from Internet attacks by a powerful SPI firewall
- Windows Live OneCare 2.0 (Up to 3 Users)
- Norton Antivirus 2010 1-User [OLD VERSION]
- Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Standard [OLD VERSION]
- Nero 8 Ultra Edition [OLD VERSION]
- Roxio Creator 2010 [OLD VERSION]
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Cisco-Linksys WRT160N Wireless-N Broadband Router
Customer Review: Unspeakably Bad
Summary: 1 Stars
I can't believe Amazon shows this as 4+ stars, when nearly half of reviewers gave it only 1 star.
Summary:
* Terrible setup experience; loads hundreds of megabytes of crapware on your computer
* Incredibly slow setup
* Locally-run software is of terrible quality; lots of UI glitches, things that don't work
* Hardware massively unreliable (I bought two of these things; stupid me). Crashed constantly
To set the context, I have been configuring and using Network equipment for 15+ years, and have been using wireless routers at my home since wireless routers were first brought to market. I currently have both a Netgear and D-Link wireless router running at home (my house is large).
Today I bought two new "N Ultra Range Plus" routers, assuming that the Cisco brand name was trustworthy, and based on the marketing materials. Several hours of frustration later, I am re-packaging both to return them. Of the 10+ wireless routers I've owned, and many more wireless adapters, these unquestionably are the worst quality and most poorly designed.
For starters, the packaging insists that you run a configuration CD to configure the router. There is a sticker over the power connector to prevent you from plugging in the router without first running the CD. This is the year 2009: why do you need anything more than a web browser to configure this router?
After you insert the CD, you have to actually go double-click. The autorun just doesn't work. When you double-click, it throws a UAC security warning, forces you to give administrative privileges (WHY?!?), and then runs a setup. When the setup completes, you are encouraged to install some bundled (and completely unrelated) anti-virus software. I already have anti-virus on my laptop -- I bought a freekin' router, not anti-virus -- WHY does Cisco insist on "upgrading" my laptop?
The window that comes up is glitchy with overlapping text on the UI. I have a very high DPI monitor, so I use 150dpi fonts. Cisco apparently never thought to test on any expensive modern laptops. Maybe they should think about using a web browser to configure the router...
Next, you're asked to accept a license agreement for the software. Even if you didn't want their stupid software, and you only want to instally the *hardware* you bought, you are forced to accept the license agreement before continuing. Why?
Next, you learn that you cannot perform initial router setup without having the router connected physically to the Internet *and* to your laptop? Huh? Are they kidding? That's utterly insane. None of my other routers have ever required this: you should be able to complete the basic setup through a web browser through local connection to laptop, then connect to the Internet and perform the rest of the setup wirelessly.
Sigh... I drag my laptop and all of the cords out to the cold garage and plug in physcal cables.
Next, following the prompts for "setup router for first time", the software churns for about 10 minutes. Surprise, surprise -- the router password is not permitted to have punctuation, but the WPA password is. Really intelligent, Cisco.
It pretends it cannot find the cable modem. I walk over and reboot the cable modem, and come back to restart the setup.
Guess what? When you re-launch the program, it launches the UAC security prompt again. It "installs" again. It forces you to accept the license agreement AGAIN. Yes, it does this EVERY time (I had to do setup 3 times).
Unfortunately, this "easy setup" program does not allow configuration of basic settings like IP subnet. Once I have the "easy setup" configured, I need to configure the advanced settings. To do this, I'm guided to click on the "setup advisor" button.
Clicking this button sets off ANOTHER install process that puts hundreds of MB of crap on my hard drive. It installs Java Runtime without my permission -- I am not even supposed to install that due to security issues in JRE. After 10 minutes of install, as my laptop battery depletes due to thrashing CD and hard drive, the "setup advisor" finally runs.
Oh, great! It installed a program in my taskbar notification area, because that's what I always WANTED! Some program to configure my router, running at all times and taking system resources. Thanks, Cisco!
The launch screen gives me four choices -- but NONE of the choices are to configure the router. I have to hit "exit", then click on a picture of the router and choose "advanced configuration". Really intuitive, Cisco.
Now the big surprise: when I finally find the way to launch "advanced config", it launches a web browser. After all of this, NOW the router allows configuration via web browser. Seriously, Cisco? Seriously? Why couldn't you just allow browser-based config from the start? Oh, I know! Because then you wouldn't have a chance to install the crappy JRE and try to upsell me on unnecessary "anti-virus".
At this point, I'm just happy to be done, and hoping to walk away and never touch the stupid thing again. But the connection to the WAN crashes. It literally crashes my cable modem. The cable modem is literally frozen, and needs power to be bounced. After being restarted, everything works fine for a few minutes, before crashing the cable modem again. It never runs for more than 10 minutes.
I switch back to D-Link; everything runs fine (I'm writing this review through D-Link). Switch to the other Cisco router; same problem. Apparently Cisco is unreliable. Back to D-Link (or Netgear).
This product is absolute garbage; staggeringly poor.
Description of Cisco-Linksys WRT160N Wireless-N Broadband Router
The Ultra RangePlus Wireless-N Broadband Router is really three devices in one box. First, there s the Wireless Access Point, which lets you connect to the network without wires. There s also a built-in 4-port full-duplex 10/100 Switch to connect your wired-Ethernet devices together. Finally, the Router function ties it all together and lets your whole network share a high-speed cable or DSL Internet connection.Digital Cameras & Photo Categories
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