Linksys WRT610N review

Linksys's dual-band WRT610N is certainly stylish, but few buy networking hardware for its looks.

What you're paying for is the router's ability to broadcast a signal on both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequency bands. Older 802.11b/g wireless only uses 2.4GHz, but some Draft-N hardware can use both frequencies.

Fewer devices use the 5GHz band, so you're unlikely to experience connection problems due to interference from your neighbours' routers. This means a 5GHz router is a good choice if you want to stream bandwidth-hungry, high-definition video across your wireless network.

Although the 5GHz band doesn't have the range and penetration of 2.4GHz, our tests produced fast transfer speeds at a distance of 25m and through a couple of walls, so you're unlikely to experience any problems in most homes.

The setup disc provides the easiest way to ensure your router and wireless network are properly configured and protected. An animated guide shows you where to connect everything, but the instructions presume you have only a single computer connected to your cable or ADSL modem, which could be confusing for some. The WRT610N isn't available with a built-in ADSL modem, so you will have to keep your existing modem and provide power for both devices.

The rest of the setup wizard helps you select your internet connection, change the router's admin password, name your 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks and create a wireless security key. The router supports WPA, the more secure WPA2 and 128-bit WEP, which is still required by some older wireless devices.

We tested wireless speeds with both Linksys's own WUSB600N wireless adaptor and our Centrino 2 laptop. The 2.4GHz Draft-N transfers using our laptop's Centrino 2 adaptor averaged a quick 44.9Mbit/s at 10m and 20.7Mbit/s at 25m. Surprisingly, the laptop couldn't detect the 5GHz network, despite working with other 5GHz routers. Linksys's own dual-band wireless adaptor worked fine at 5GHz, with impressive speeds from 76.7Mbit/s at 1m to an outstanding 36.7Mbit/s at 25m.

There are four Gigabit Ethernet ports for wired networking, which is useful if you need to move large files between Gigabit-capable devices. A USB port lets you connect and share an external hard disk across your network, which turns it into a basic NAS. The router can also act as a UPnP media server to share this content across your network.

The WRT601N has similar wireless performance to D-Link's DIR-855, though it's a little faster in 2.4GHz mode. It's ideal if you require quick wireless transfers or if you've been suffering interference from nearby 2.4GHz routers, but it's expensive when compared to a 2.4GHz Draft-N router such as SMC's SMC7904WBRA-N.