But since it uses the MI-MO technology it is at least 4.4 times faster than other AC1750 routers letting you enjoy super-fast speeds. The main differences are the three external, upgradeable (RP-SMA) dual-band antennas. I did notice that this metal strip can get a bit warm to the touch after several hours of uptime. An avid Xbox gamer, she unashamedly admits to owning more than 3,000 comic books, and enjoys exploring her Hell's Kitchen neighborhood and the rest of New York city with her dog, Ninja. I'm confidant Linksys will have a firmware update in the near future to fix the adapter issues. When I tested using my laptop's native on-board Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 AGN adapter I received slower throughput results but I did not have any connection drops 30 feet and farther from the router. Linksys provides a wealth of background information, video tutorials and guides on its website, should any of its users need additional help. This is achieved by increased QAM with supported wireless clients. The Linksys EA6900 bears more than a passing resemblance to the EA6500 that we reviewed in December 2012. Linksys backs up this router’s outstanding performance with great support and a solid warranty. In some features, however, the directly competing Netgear Nighthawk($149.99 at Best Buy), a newcomer to the router market, has an edge. Linksys EA7500 Wi-Fi router review: MU-MIMO made affordable (but no more useful) This router is a good performer, but it's too early in the game to pay more for multi-user MIMO. But for ultimate parental controls in a router, look to Skydog, where its best feature is content and Internet access management (though this offers nowhere near the speed of the EA6900). Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Discover the key facts and see how Linksys EA6900 performs in the router ranking. At a Glance. It's the fastest router I've tested. This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Not the default router password though (for reference, it's "'admin") which you'll need to remember at this stage if you choose to skip the setup process and set up the router manually. We suspect this is another benefit of a fast dual-core processor. Tech-savvier users can also manually add applications and services to this QoS. However, it does retail for about $70 less. The key word here is 'supported'. However, it's fairly safe to say that Linksys EA6900 is a more popular router, based on its reviews. It then creates a new, unique router login password for use later. With the EA6400 I received a strange error attempting to delete a file off a shared folder:"File in use. In March 2013, Cisco sold its consumer networking division to Belkin, who are maintaining the brand separately from its other product lines. The software will ask if you want to set up a Linksys Smart Wi-Fi account, which you need for the cloud management portion. Linksys has stuck with the basic look of its other EA series routers for the 6900. For testing, we used a desktop PC with an Asus PCE-AC68 desktop 802.11ac wireless card, since it's one of the few wireless adaptors to support 3x3 802.11ac. Setup is completed in five steps: (1) Power on; (2) connect the Internet cable to the WAN port; (3) wait for the router's LED to turn a solid green; (4) connect to the pre-configured SSID (the SSID name and password are printed in the setup guide) or connect an Ethernet cable from a laptop to one of the router's LAN ports; (5) open a web browser to complete final settings. The Linksys EA6500 is a very good consumer router for mainstream users who don’t need a lot of bells and whistles, but the Asus RT-AC66U remains … From this site, a wizard walks you through configuration and you have the option to skip setup and configure manually. The Linksys EA6900 is powerful, its on-board software looks great and it's straightforward to use. Until Linksys irons out issues with the adapter, my suggestion would be to only use the Linksys USB adapter at the 5GHz band, and use your wireless client's native wireless adapter for connecting to the EA6900 at the 2.4GHz band. Port forwarding, DMZ, VPN, diagnostic tools and so on are all there. Reads did even better (as Reads usually do) at 27MBps but that is far better than the average test result I get—about 13MBps. Linksys Smart WiFi software. That router reached over 300Mbps testing with a high performance testing script, but did not get close to the EA900's 400Mbps mark. During testing the router showed to be reliable most of the time. Most of all, the page gives the reasons why I should purchased the device at Linksys Store. SKU EA6900-CA. Please deactivate your ad blocker in order to see our subscription offer, We check over 130 million products every day for the best prices, Microsoft may have just killed off conferences for good, The best Apple Watch apps we've used: ready for 2021, How to watch Wonder Woman 1984 online: stream WW84 from anywhere today, The KFConsole is real, and it boasts one big advantage over the PS5 and Xbox Series X, PS5 and Xbox Series X stock update: Walmart cracks down on bots and scalpers, Google patent suggests the Pixel 6 might have an under-display camera, The best Android apps right now: ready for 2021, Widgets for quick access to software functions. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. I couldn't get rid of this file until I removed and then reconnected the USB drive. Connectivity. Try again." It's a good fit for multi-device home networks with lots of movie and TV streaming, Skype use, and online gaming. Thankfully, these are organised in a fairly straightforward way, separated into one list labelled 'Smart Wi-Fi Tools', and another labelled 'Router Settings'. Speedy NAS functionality with connected USB drives. This is a smart move, because the EA6900 is an exemplary router, providing unprecedented performance in range and throughput in my testing. A few less seconds waiting for a page to load when you click a link makes it far less frustrating. C $68.05. The "USB Storage" widget is what you click to manage storage. Samara Lynn has nearly twenty years experience in Information Technology; most recently as IT Director at a major New York City healthcare facility. Linksys has done a good job with the particularly sleek software interface on the EA6900. This is a facility for remote router management via the cloud. Then the device spatially forms the highest bandwidth beam it can muster, using a technique called Space-Division Multiple Access … Setting up the Smart RouterEven people who are inexperienced in setting up routers will be able to install the EA6900 using the included Quick Start Guide and setup disc. PerformanceThe killer feature of the EA6900 is its speed and range. The EA6900 is missing two advanced features that the Nighthawk has: full VPN service, and the ability to be flashed with open-source firmware. The next stage asks you to set up a Linksys Smart Wifi account. Not a huge difference; for me, it's that 400Mbps for high throughput testing that sets the EA6900 a bar higher than the Trendnet when comparing both at 5GHz in 802.11ac mode. The Linksys EA6900 has a 3x3 antenna configuration, with each channel managing 433 Mbps. For Linksys… Beyond that, Linksys has managed to become one of the biggest names in home networking by perfecting a few features and innovating new functionality, such as the following. The three dipole (dual-frequency) antennae are now fitted to the outside of the device and it also has a dual-core 800MHz processor. There was a problem. We transferred files back and forth wirelessly, first in the same room at a rough distance of 1 metre, then in a second room, with a wall in between. Linksys AC1900 Dual-Band Smart Wi-Fi Router (EA6900) Get superior performance and enjoy speeds up to 4.3x faster than wireless-N with the Linksys AC1900 Dual-Band Smart Wi-Fi Router. I clicked on the link and was able to see the Average Rating but was not able to view the feedback. The Linksys EA8300 has as many features as most higher priced routers. Learn More. Yet, for just pure speed, range, and surprisingly speedy NAS performance with a drive connected to its USB 3.0 port, the EA6900 is the more powerful router—but you'll pay for that, with its list price $50 higher than the Nighthawk. That performance load balancing is fine, but it should not disconnect the client from the router. The Linksys EA6900 AC1900 Smart Wi-Fi Router is a high-performance?and high-priced?router that's easy to manage. As its name implies, MU-MIMOmakes a virtue of handling several lanes of data traffic into and out of a router so that one member of a digital household won't hog all the bandwidth. Meanwhile, click on the links below for full performance results of the EA6900 compared with other 11ac routers: Check out 5GHz throughput results for the EA6900, Check out 2.4GHz (802.11N-only Mode) throughput results for the EA6900, Check out 2.4GHz (Mixed Mode) throughput results for the EA6900. It earns four out of five stars and an Editors' Choice for consumer routers. The antennae take a bit of tightening before they're securely attached. Perfect for HD video streaming and gaming, the EA6900 features speeds of up to N600 + AC1300 Mbps.*. It's sharp-looking, with a black housing and silver metallic decoration. This is a concurrent, dual-band router with a 3x3 transmit/receive antenna configuration on each band. This guided setup is great for newbies. Overall though, the Trendnet holds its own with a standard throughput test using Ixia's IxChariot testing software when compared with the EA6900: At 15 feet the Trendnet router managed 283Mbps compared with the Linksys at 238Mbps. These speeds are not bad. The Linksys EA6900 bears more than a passing resemblance to the EA6500 that we reviewed in December 2012. Please refresh the page and try again. I love that I can use the Linksys app to configure all settings, including the name & password for my wifi network. While some 802.11ac routers and clients can result in even higher performance, breaking the 40 MB/sec barrier over wireless is a decent result, better than anything you can get from 802.11n. We measured transfer rates over 802.11n at 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, and 802.11ac at its standard 5 GHz. The EA6900 is a more robust router than the EA6400 when it comes to specs. PCMag, PCMag.com and PC Magazine are among the federally registered trademarks of Ziff Davis, LLC and may not be used by third parties without explicit permission. Free shipping The Linksys EA6900 AC1900 Smart Wi-Fi Router ($249, MSRP)($134.99 at Amazon) is currently the best router to come from Linksys since its acquisition by Belkin. Surprisingly, I got some of the best performance I've tested using a router's USB NAS functionality. The Linksys by Cisco label is now simply Linksys. SKU EA6900-UK. Perfect for HD video streaming and gaming, the EA6900 features speeds of up to N600 + AC1300 Mbps.*. The Cisco logo has finally been banished, replaced by a bright white Linksys. Linksys EA6900 NETGEAR Nighthawk R7000 Buffalo Airstation AC1900 WiFi Performance AC1900 WiFi (600 + 1300 Mbps) AC1900 WiFi (600 + 1300 Mbps) AC1900 WiFi (600 + 1300 Mbps) WiFi Band 2.4GHz & 5GHz 2.4GHz & 5GHz 2.4GHz & 5GHz Ethernet Ports 4 Gigabit LAN port 1 Gigabit WAN port 4 Gigabit LAN port 1 Gigabit […] As with the Linksys EA6400, the interface offers a list of devices—both wired and wireless—connected to the router, guest access, parental controls, media prioritization, and more. I tested Read and Write performance with a drive attached to the router using a movie clip and a laptop wired to one of the EA6900's LAN ports. Linksys EA9500 AC5400 reviews, pros and cons, Amazon price history. Parental controls work efficiently. NY 10036. Having a fast dual-core processor makes all the difference to performance. The Linksys Smart Wifi cloud administration interface is useful and simple to use, although we're still unsure whether potentially compromising network security is a worthy trade for added convenience. They provide a quick glance at the router's status and some of its functions. The Linksys EA6900's software employs lots of modern web design techniques that look really good, with heavy use of animated transitions, CSS and Javascript.