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in the lab
Cisco’s Linksys E4200 looks
pretty, but we value function
over form.
Netgear's WNDR4000 looks very much
like the older WNDR3700; too bad it
doesn’t perform like it.
Wi-Fi Router Rhumba
Time to upgrade your network or stand pat?
WE HATE TO SAY IT, but if you’re looking for a new high-end router, it probably makes
more sense to wait than to buy either of these models . It seems manufacturers still
haven’t fi gured out the best way to deploy the new Wi-Fi chipsets that offer three spatial streams to deliver theoretical throughput of 450Mb/s. We’ve been down this road
with other new wireless technologies, so we know it will pass. We only wish we could
tell you when. –MICHAEL BROWN
CISCO LINKSYS E4200
DUAL-BAND 802.11N ROUTER
We weren’t impressed with the last
Linksys-branded router that passed
through Maximum Lab North. The
dual-band Linksys E3000 (in reality, a
rebadged Linksys WRT610N) delivered
humdrum performance and lacked a
number of important features we expect
to find in a high-end router. The E4200
fares better, but we’re still scratching our
heads over some of Linksys’s decisions.
The first thing you’ll notice about
the E4200 is its minimalist industrial
design. Plug in its inline power supply (no wall wart!) and you’ll find that
it’s almost devoid of front-panel idiot
lights: There are no LEDs to indicate an
Internet connection, which of its radios
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AUG 2011
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are operating, or even which of its ports
are in use. The only thing that glows on
the front panel is Cisco’s logo. There
are port-activity LEDs on the back of
the router, but even these can be turned
off via the router’s web interface.
We like that. In fact, we liked the
entire low-profile design—at least until
we tried to plug in our Ethernet cables.
That’s when we discovered that the top
of the router’s housing blocked the vinyl
hoods covering our cables’ RJ45 connectors. We had no problem fitting cables
outfitted with bare connectors, but that’s
pretty lame. Also lame: providing a USB
port that doesn’t deliver enough power
to spin up a 2.5-inch USB hard drive (we
tested it with a 500GB Verbatim Clon
drive). Oh well, at least the router sup-
ports NTSF drives (the E3000 didn’t).
Linksys claims the E4200 is capable
of a “maximum speed up to 300 + 450
Mbps.” Translation: The E4200 supports
two spatial streams (with 150Mb/s of
bandwidth each) on its 2.4GHz radio, and
three spatial streams (also with 150Mb/s
of bandwidth each) on its 5GHz radio. But
as we found with the E3000, the E4200
comes from the factory with both radios
broadcasting the very same SSID. And
while Cisco has made a number of important improvements to its Cisco Connect
software (which can turn any USB thumb
drive into a wireless client configuration
tool), the utility still doesn’t inform you
which radio it’s connecting the client to.
Unlike the E3000, however, you can easily
access the E4200’s web interface and
change the SSIDs, as well as other critical aspects of the router’s configuration.
In addition to assigning discrete SSIDs
to each radio, we also enabled channel
bonding on the 2.4GHz radio (an admittedly neighbor-unfriendly move, but we
wanted to see what it was capable of;