Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Router EA4500

9:42 AM    
The router is the first in the Linksys EA series that Cisco launched two months ago. It didn't get reviewed until now because the heart of the new series, the Cisco Connect Cloud solution, went live just last week. After playing with the new cloud-based approach to home routers for a few days, I can confidently say that it will change the way you think about networking entirely, mostly for better




Design

The low-slung Cisco Linksys Smart
Wi-Fi Router EA4500 is sleek and understated; its black matte top has a single band of chrome running down the middle. Like the rest of its routers over the past few years, there's no antennas sticking out the top. On the back are four Gigabit Ethernet ports, as well as one USB port that can be used to network an external hard drive.
Performance

 transferring a 6GB collection of files between two HP Envy 17 notebooks took 10 minutes 20 seconds, and a 1.2GB collection of files took 2 minutes and 14 seconds. Those speeds are fairly typical for 802.11n.

At 150 feet from the router, the EA4500 notched 62 Mbps, which is on a par with the average. The D-Link DIR865L, however, was more than twice as fast, at 170 Mbps. The Belkin AC1200 averaged 160 Mbps from 5 feet, and 65 Mbps from 150 feet.
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