Linksys E4200 Dual-Band Wireless-N Router
If your router isn’t providing you with the speed and range you need in order to browse the internet from the farthest corners of your home, it may be worth giving the Linksys E4200 Dual Band Router from Cisco a test run in your home.
Upon examination, you can tell that the E4200 departs slightly from traditional router design. It takes away the flashing lights that are usually on the front of the router and moves them to the back next to the Ethernet ports. The only light on the front is a soft white light with the Cisco logo on it which shines solid to indicate the router is working and pulses if there is a problem. This leaves the outside of the router simple and sleek, a great feature if your router is in a visible place in your house. The back also has four Gigabit Ethernet ports so you can hardwire quite a few devices to the router.
Setting up the router was a breeze. You can use the Cisco Connect software that comes with the Linksys or you can set the router up manually online if you’re connected to the internet. Both worked well and got the job done, but Cisco Connect maps out the setup steps better than the online version, while the online version offered more customization with setting up port forwarding and parental controls. In the end the best path to take depends on the users preferences. If you need something that’s easy to follow the Connect software is best.
The Linksys operates on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequencies, the 2.4 GHz giving you more speed while the 5 GHz gives you a longer range. The 5GHz band gives you up to 450 Mbps and the 2.4 GHz gives you up to 300 Mbps. Although you’re not likely to reach these advertised speeds, with normal usage you can easily average 70-100 Mbps. Both bands will allow you to stream movies and play games without having to worry about lagging, even with several computers running off the router and over distances of about 150-200 feet away.
Another good feature of the Linksys is its Network Attached Storage function. The router has a USB port so you can plug in a USB thumb drive or External Hard Drive and share the files with anyone on the network. Although it wasn’t quite fast enough to stream movies this way, music and files were easy to share and access. The Linksys also lets you set up a guest network on the 2.4 GHz band for up to 10 computers at once. With this feature, if you only want someone to have access to the internet and not your shared files, then you can easily set them up as a guest knowing your network is safe.
Using the Linksys was great. Its range and speed were exceptional, but unfortunately so was its price tag. The E4200 costs around 179.99, but if other routers aren’t able to keep up with you, it’ll be worth the price to minimize your frustration. The only shortcoming of the E4200 was its guest networking capabilities. Since it can only accommodate 10 computers at a time, it wouldn’t be ideal to rely on this feature to set up a hotspot in a public place.