Linksys WRT610N Simultaneous Dual-N Band WR

Okay so I want to get this router for the apartment I'll be sharing with friends. We all have laptops that will connect to the "n" signal.

My question however is in regards to Printer Sharing. Now I will have a Vista laptop here in the next few weeks and I already know how to configure Printer Sharing, etc. However my question is this...does Printer Sharing involve the wireless router or does it occur thru some other means?

Because I was reading the cNet review for this router and the author states, "Unfortunately, WRT610N doesn't serve printers, which is disappointing."

What exactly does that mean? Should I be worried and reconsider buying this router? I don't want to get it and then find out we're unable to share a printer because the router doesn't support this feature of Vista.

I really need clarification on this and I'd appreciate any help. Also if anyone has this router let me know what you think of it. So far I've been impressed by everything I've read regarding it (except the serve printer part).

 

If the printer is going to be plugged into a computer, and shared through that, then you do not have to worry. However, what cNet is talking about, is some routers now have built in print servers. You plug the printer directly in to the router, and it becomes a wireless printer. When the printer is plugged in to a computer, the computer is the print server, and the router will not affect is as long as the computers are all networked properly.

 

AWESOME! Thank you so much for the quick reply. You have no idea how bummed out I was at the thought of this being a barrier.

I've got a 360 and Wii in the apartment. With this router I can have them connect thru the 2.4 GHz bandwith right while I connect my laptop at the 5GHz n bandwidth and not experience any slowdown or have a less that normal speed connection right?

 

Wireless N is backwards compatible with wireless a/b/g, so your Xbox and Wii should not have problems connecting. You will however have to use WEP encryption, as for some god-forsaken reason, the Wii does not support WPA. I also suggest supplementing the WEP with MAC filtering for added security.

 

Are you sure? I have WPA on my current router and the Wii doesn't have any problems with it...

But thanks for the advice though.

 

Perhaps there is some updated firmware that I don't have that allows it. If WPA works now it will work later. Thanks for the info.

 

If you have any machines that connect with 802.11g, then the max wireless throughput of the router will be 54Mbps. You will not notice any speed reduction when surfing the internet, but file transfers may become noticeably slower.

 

And why would that be the case if it is supposed to be broadcasting TWO wireless signals on 2 different bandwidths or whatever?

The whole point of me considering buying this router is that I will have a laptop which will connect thru 802.11 n while my other devices will connect thru 802.11 g without any interference between the two.

 

I did not read the tech specs on the router prior to my post. If the dual bands work as advertised, there should be no problem with N and G.

 

i'm not very sure if the wrt610n is very good. i remember readin lots of negative reviews for the "flat type" (wrt160n & wrt310n) linksys routers.

usually, a router with external antennas are better than interal antennas.

i'm just lettin u know so u dont make a purchase that won't meet yur needs/wants. u should also look into the wrt600n. good luck =)

 

Really? My current NetGear has internal antennas and I get excellent rating for signals from them as well as a really good speed. However I'm not an expert and I do see your point.

In regards to the router I was inquiring about cNet gave it a positive review and most of the customer reviews I've seen on Amazon.com are also glowing. There are some that just posted in the last day or so but I'm not quite sure if I find them believable. It's sorta odd how 3 people posted the same exact thing one right after another...

Plus the other one you mentioned is an older model right? And Amazon is out of stock of it anyways...

 

thats cool if it has positive reviews. i was just givin u a heads up so u would be aware. i was lookin at new draft-n routers a few months ago and those flat-type routers were gettin really bad reviews. i've heard linksys has recently released some new firmware/update, so that might've taken care of some of the negatives.

 

I've read a side by side reviews of the WRT600N and WRT610N. The internal antennas do not seem to hinder performance according to the benchmarks.

As far as the firmware goes. I mistakenly said they update the firmware on WRT600N. This was incorrect. The firmware for WRT610N isn't even available off linksys.com. Strange...

I personally would hold off picking up this router until linksys provides a proper firmware upgrade. You could use DD-WRT but you would lose the NAS capabilities which defeats the purpose of picking this router over other dual bands to begin with.

 

Sorry I didn't understand what you meant by "NAS capablities"....

When was the 610N released? I think it was pretty recent right? In that case I'm not surprised. However I hope they release one soon that optimizes performance and gets rid of w/e bugs may be there.

Anyways my new laptop doesn't come till around the 25th according to HP so I've got time before I buy the new router. I will definitely take your advice though regarding the firmware.

Thanks!

 

NAS capabilities, meaning you can plug an external hard drive into it and everyone can access the drive through the network. Pretty neat feature.

 

This router does not support printers through the USB port.

If you don't need the dual band I would highly recommend the apple airport extreme.

Same price range, still a wireless N router, but the USB port supports drives and printers. Best of all you can even plug a usb hub into the routers USB port and have a printer and drive connected the your wlan/lan at the same time.

 

Is dual-band worth the extra cost? I was also thinking about buy the WRT610N becuase of the dual-band & NAS capabilities. My current D-Link wireless router's signal is having problems with 4 cordless phones, a microwave & all the walls in our house.

I am moving from a desktop to a new HP DV7T laptop, so I want a good wireless N router that has NAS capabilties & this seems to fit my need. Any thoughts?

 

A dual band will get you out of problem when you are on a very 2GHz band congestion, then using the 5GHz will come handy. Also the 5GHz band has more channels permitting the use of 40MHz wide channels increase thus the wireless link speed.

 

could you tell what performance you've got when you copy to your local hdd from hdd which is attached to WRT610N ? I tested with my external hdd enclosure which has more than 20MB/sec transmission speed in window explorer with my laptop. However, when I copied to my local hdd from WRT610N, it gives me 4-5MB/sec. I think this is odd if they don't solve this issue. I wonder whether you also have similar performance.

Thank you,

 

If you read the review on Smallnetbuilder it test indicated that there were some interuptions, all have them. But not near as bad as a single radio which knocks the speed down to 11b (3mbps). This hick-up will only get better (reduced) as newer firmware is released. It's taken 5 yrs for 11g to get where it's at, and it still have problems when it comes to different mfg (radios) playing together. I don't expect 11n to be any different, may be worst since it has more things to deal with. So check regularly for firmware updates, and always keep your older releases.