Cisco-Linksys WRT600N Linksys Ultra RangePlus Dual-Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router with Storage Link
by Linksys
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List Price: Our Price: $109.99 You Save: $90.00 (45%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Cisco-Linksys WRT600N Linksys Ultra RangePlus Dual-Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router with Storage Link
Customer Review: Up and down
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought this router with the dma2100 media center extender (I have posted a review for the DMA2100). I was "upgrading" from the WRT300N to this router as it seemed like a good deal for gigabit networking and the extra USB port for a storage link. I never used the storage link option as I spent most of my time dealing with the router's "hiccups". The main hiccup I encountered was DNS resolution. I could see the machines in the DHCP client list, but could not ping by name. Therefore, if a drive was mapped on one of the machines on the network, the mapping sometimes failed on system startup. The other issue I had was occasionally, an IP address conflict would occur on the network. All machines/devices on the network were set to use DHCP. The wireless networking was set to not broadcast the SSID, with MAC address filtering enabled, WPA2 + AES encryption and a strong key, so I kinda doubt that someone else was using the network, though I admit it's not impossible. And last, a minor gripe about the pages that are displayed following a setting change to the router setup. It always seemed that the times it displayed that it would refresh after a setting change were too short.
I have returned this unit to Amazon and have "downgraded" back to the WRT300N, which is working like a champ. I don't quite get the speed on my laptop that I did with the WRT600N, but the reliability is worth it.
As a side note, I did ensure that the latest firmware for both the WRT600N (1.01.36 build 3 at the time) and DMA2100 (not sure what version for the extender as is downloaded by extender utility) was downloaded and installed before I set up my network, so getting the latest firmware wouldn't solve the issues. IMO, Linksys seriously needs to release a firmware update to the WRT600N.
Customer Review: Easy setup - Very dissapointing Wireless performance
Summary: 2 Stars
I purchased this unit because I gave my daughter the D-link DIR 655 unit I had (which worked extremely well). Since I needed a new unit I decided to give the WRT600N a try. Everything started very well. The installation was easy and intuitive. Networking is set and you're up and running in a few minutes, or so you thought...
My wife's PC is connected to the router via the 1GB Ethernet and naturally this connection is very fast. I have a ReadyNAS network storage device that is also connected to the router via a 1GB Ethernet connection. This is our central storage where we keep our files (movies, music, documents, e-mail, etc.). This connection is also very fast. Working on my wife's PC is fast and easy (I have a 7Mb ADSL internet connection from Qwest).
The wireless network is another story altogether. My wireless network has many devices connected to it - PS3, Squeezebox, my PC, my laptop and my wife's laptop. I set it up with WAP2 security. There are no walls to speak of between those devices as we have a large open space between our leaving room and office. My PC is 10 feet away from the router, the PS3 and Sqeezebox are 20f away... As it turns out, the WRT600N router is horrible at supporting streaming media over it's wireless network, period. The performance is choppy, inconsistent and gets worse as time goes by, so much so, that I have to reboot the router periodically. It is worse then the original linksys router I had before I switched to D-link. It is really bad. Absolutely no comparison with the DIR 655. So guess what I am doing? My experiment is over and I am getting another D-link DIR 655 device. The DIR 655 performs significantly better (as rated by all professional reviews I read on the net) and does not have any of the side-effects I described above.
Customer Review: Not up to the hype
Summary: 1 Stars
UPDATE 5/23/2010
The router is now a BRICK. After long term intermittent connection problems, I installed the latest version of the firmware. Everything was working fine - for 24 hours. Now, I get 5 blinking yellow lights after a very long delay. I cannot access the internal IP 192.168.1.1. I have gone through all of the hard reset tricks and configurations on the Cisco support site. The COMCAST repair tech was here and confirmed the router is dead. He has seen many dead linksys routers and recommmended NETGEAR. I believed the Cisco gear would be the best, but this is NOT their commercial grade technology. AVOID IT.
OLDER (from 2007) I gave 3-stars here.
I recently purchased the WRT600N N-series to replace a D-link g-series wireless router. I wanted a Cisco product (quality) to avoid the random connection issues I had experienced with prior products. This WRT600N has both 2.4 and 5GHZ bands to operate simultaneously. I also purchased the WPC600N notebook adapter that was specifically designed to work with the router. My wife and I depend on a strong signal so we can actually do work and not play wireless connection debug. I am running Vista and she has XP. I specifically went for the 5GHz product, which I expected to have a greater signal strength farther from the router.
Impressions:
1)The 5GHz signal is weaker than the 2.4Ghz signal far from the router where it is supposed to be stronger.
2) The router install program did not work. Just use 192.168.1.1 directly to configure it.
3) I don't feel it was worth the extra expense since the 5ghz signal is NOT stronger.
Recommendation: By a 2.4 GHz product and use the wireless adapters built into your laptop.
Customer Review: Good router but may be too many features to be useful
Summary: 4 Stars
Purchased because needed extended range to reach a computer in my basement (3 floors down from my router) and I wanted to get a gigabit router. I also liked the storage link function. Overall, the router performs great. I don't get the blazing speeds in the basement, but I do get connection where my old G router did not quite make it there. I also believe that moving my router may also increase performance. Setup was very easy moving from one linksys router to another, however I would say that the wizard doesn't do everything it should...
I also like the interface (with the exception of storage link noted below) and it is VERY easy to set up. I use a VoIP phone and it was simple to set up the phone for QoS and that has worked flawlessly. (Another big reason for purchasing the phone.) You can set QoS by MAC address, IP address, ports, etc. Very few people use this function and you definitely should.
I'm disappointed with the storage link. I'm familiar with technology and disk management and I have yet to figure out the Storage Link interface. There is NO documentation with the unit, and very little on this feature online. I know that if I spend some time with it, I will be able to find instructions, but a SimpleShare device I purchased a few years ago didn't require reading manuals (yuck!).
I am also disappointed that, at the time of purchase, only notebook cards were supported with the dual radios. I don't know if this would have increased my range (don't think so) so for now, I think I would purchase the less expensive non UltraRange version of this with only the one radio.
Customer Review: WRT600N is a mixed bad
Summary: 3 Stars
In a wooden house where there is a floor and ceiling and usually two walls (50-75 linear feet) separating the router from where the wireless laptop is most often used, the signal strength shows up at < 50% which is 20 points or so lower than the WRT54G that the 600 replaced. My impression however is that throughput on n is actually better, possibly because there is no ambient interference from phone on same frequency or microwave.
My one strong piece of advice for this product is - if you have set up routers before and have any sense of what you need to do - forgo the EasyLink Advisor installation. That SW mostly got in the way rather than helped. It also seemed to introduce some instability into LAN connectivity; now that I have removed EasyLink Advisor local connectivity seems to be back to normal.
I have not yet experimented with attaching a USB drive to the router; NAS seems like a nice feature if it works well.
Was the product worth it at $200 (including shipping and sales tax)? It got me away from internet stalls and disconnects when my wife decides to zap a cup of coffee or the phone rings. At very least it hasn't harmed connectivity. Maybe the drive attach will prove the "cherry on the cake." The price tradeoff you'll need to decide for yourselves; for me the price/value equation translates into a three star rating.
One pleasant aspect of this transaction was Electronica Direct, who sent emails confirming the order and shipping. It arrived so fast there was no time to track it!