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Routers are the life and soul of the media party in many modern households. They are also under an ever increasing demand to deliver high definition media content to multiple devices simultaneously. Whether this be for streaming TV, gaming online, downloading or uploading content – it all requires a fast connection to the router. The Linksys Smart Wi-Fi EA6500 is a 5th generation router featuring incredible speeds of up to 1750 Mbps (between the 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz bands).
While some homes are lucky enough to have Gigabit Ethernet cabled to every room, others are not, and as such most rely on a wireless router to provide them with that constant stream of data.
Specifications:
| Model: | Linksys EA6500 |
| Technology: | 802.11n (2.4Ghz) & 802.11ac (5Ghz) |
| Bands: | Simultaneous 2.4 GHz and 5 Ghz |
| Transmit/Receive: | 3 x 3 |
| Antennas: | 6 internal |
| USB port: | Yes (shared storage, virtual USB and media server) |
| Ports x Speed: | 4 x Gigabit |
| IPv6 Support: | Native IPv6 and 6rd support |
| Linksys Smart Wi-Fi capable: | Yes |
| Setup: | Cisco Connect CD Install |
| Warranty: | 2 year hardware limited warranty |
The Linksys Smart Wi-Fi (EA6500) Router ships in a predominately blue box with a darker band across the top. The front of the box shows us the product and lots of features, including the impressive 450 Mbps (2.4 GHz) + 1300 Mbps (5.0 GHz) wireless speeds.
The back of the box explains in more detail the ‘Smart Wi-Fi' features of this router, as well as listing the impressive specifications. There is nothing too extravagant about this packaging but it gets across the key features in a very clear manner.
Opening up the box we find the router sat on top in a protective bag, with the power supply sat at the bottom of the router.
As you would probably expect with a router there aren't many accessories. The company have included a network cable, which you will need to connect this router to a modem, the power supply, and an installation CD.
The Linksys EA6500 router is not of a standard design as it lies flat instead of standing vertically. It also lacks any antennas which we have seen to feature on several ‘high-powered routers'. While we like the design, it will of course take up a larger footprint, but it can be wall-mounted.
The back of the router is where all the connections are, these include; 1 x RJ45 modem socket, 4 x RJ45 (Gigabit Ethernet) ports, 2 x USB 2.0 ports and the power socket. There is also an on/off switch, a reset switch and an AOSS button.
The top of the device features a simple metal band – which will help to dissipate the heat away from the transmitters – and the simple Cisco logo that lights up when powered on.
Setting up the router was a simple process, involving only 2 key steps. Run the set-up from the CD and then follow the instructions, which included: ‘plug in router' and ‘enter chosen Wi-Fi details'. It then proceeds to set-up the router automatically, and for us, it also completed a firmware update. We were connected to the router and had internet access all within a few minutes.
The Linksys EA6500 utilises the Cisco Connect Cloud, which means you can access your router from any location by logging in at www.ciscoconnectcloud.com or even by using an Android or iOS app. Once logged on we were met by this page, which features a simple layout with live widgets.
From the left-hand menu we can select a variety of options. These include seeing all the devices connected and adding more remotely on the Device List page, and enabling guest Wi-Fi access on the Guest Access page. The Guest Access page also allows you the option to limit the total number of guests who can access it at any one time, something we thought was a nice touch.
The next set of options were for parental control, which allows you to block computers individually, or at certain times of the day, as well as blocking certain sites. Another great option is the Media Prioritization, as this allows you to select a computer or other device. You can select more than one, to have a higher priority, meaning the router will deal with its requests first, giving you the best connection possible.
The EA6500 router incorporates a broadband speed test, which is great for checking everything is working as expected. As there are also two USB 2.0 ports on the router, they have added some USB Storage options, which would allow you to use the router as a media server or a print server.
The next set of pages, allow you to set-up the router as you want. The connectivity pages allow you to alter the basic router settings, internet settings, local network and routing settings as well as device settings. The troubleshooting page is great for seeing the status of the router and any devices connected as well as the router logs.
The final two pages allow you to set-up the wireless settings and the router security settings. There is another neat feature hidden here called SimpleTap which will allow you to set-up the Wi-Fi settings on the latest mobile phones (with NFC enabled) just by touching the provided card to the phone.
The Android app gives you a few basic widget-like boxes to alter the guest Wi-Fi access and view connected devices. It does also give you full access to all the normal router settings if you slide the black bar up from the bottom of the screen. Very convenient and easy to use.
The key feature of any router testing is the performance. We focus on two key aspects, range and speed. We also split out testing into 2 stages; a very simple and crude wireless speed against range test, and a throughput speed test.
For our crude wireless speed against range test we are using the built-in windows wireless speed reading (if you right-click on the wireless connection and click status). This tells us the speed that the computer is connected to the router.
We then measure these readings from different points in our house, firstly within 1 metre (i.e. sat next to the router in our lounge), within 5 metres (reading taken in our kitchen through 1 internal wall), then 10 metres (including 2 walls, the second being our external wall) and 15 metres (the furthest away we can get while staying in our garden).
We are using two wireless dongles, a Buffalo N450 Wireless-N (WLI-UC-G450) USB Adapter, and a Netgear A6200 802.11ac Dual Band USB Adapter. This gives us the fastest possible dongle for the 2.4 GHz range (the Buffalo adapter gives up to 450 Mbps) and currently the fastest possible USB dongle for the 5.0 GHz AC range (up to 900 Mbps from the Netgear adapter).
To give you some idea of the speeds of this router compared to another high-powered router we are using our Buffalo AirStation Nfiniti Dual Band High Power Router (WZR-HP-AG300H), which operates at up to 300 Mbps on both bands. While this is now a touch out-dated, this is still faster and more powerful than the standard routers supplied by most Internet Service Providers (like Virgin or BT).
While the performance of the Buffalo Nfiniti router is good, the Linksys EA6500 is vastly superior. Over the first 5 metres the Buffalo performance deteriorated noticeably, but the Linksys was still running at full speed.
The Linksys router is able to deliver a faster speed at 10 metres distance than the Buffalo could in the same room, this is a significant improvement. At the full distance of 15 metres the Linksys router was performing at twice the speed of the Buffalo, a very impressive result considering the distance and the two walls in the middle.
While the Linksys EA6500 performance on the 2.4 GHz band is very good and probably makes it one of the best routers on the market, the 5.0 GHz band is where its performance really shines.
While we have used the fastest AC dongle on the market it is not fast enough for this router as it was limited at 866.5 Mbps whereas the router can theoretically top out at 1300 Mbps (we saw this with the ASUS RT-AC66U as well) . Once again we see that the Buffalo Nfiniti performance drops quickly with distance, but at 10 metres the Linksys EA6500 is still offering nearly 500 Mbps. Over the full distance of 15 metres, both lose a lot of performance from their maximum, but the Linksys still held strong at 175 Mbps at the top end of our garden.
Real-life speeds.
The main aim of this test is to illustrate how much faster this router is compared to the best of the previous generation of routers (i.e. N300 speeds).
For this test, we set-up one of our computers next to the router so that we could connect it via the Gigabit Ethernet. We then connected our other computer by wireless. The test was then to transfer a large file (large video file), over the network from the cabled computer to the wireless one. We recorded the maximum speed obtained (although we ignored the first few seconds to allow the speeds to settle).
Both computers use fast solid state drives as their primary drive and we used the faster 5.0 Ghz band for the test. The wireless computer is approximately 10 metres away from the router with several walls and a floor in between. For our base test we used a standard Wireless-N connection with the Buffalo adapter which is able to maintain close to 300 Mbps over this distance.
Maximum throughput speed via Linksys AC at 10 metres: 14 MB/s
Maximum throughput speed via Wireless-N at 10 metres: 2.5 MB/s
While these speeds are not impressive in their own right, it is the difference between them that is the most astounding. With this Linksys EA6500 router and the Netgear A6200 Adapter we were able to see speeds nearly 5 times faster than the previous best of N300.
In terms of transferring data across a wireless network this is a very significant improvement, but in a home environment this will still improve HD video streaming and gaming as you will have spare bandwidth to play with – of course the limiting factor will again be your internet connection.
The Linksys EA6500 Router is one of only a few ‘next-generation' routers available today. We have previously tested the ASUS RT-AC66U router. Unfortunately we were unable to do any direct comparisons between the two as our Asus sample was returned to the company some time ago.
The user interface, or ‘Cisco Cloud Connect' is fully featured and intuitive to use and while we did like the ASUS configuration pages, we feel the Linksys/Cisco approach has better features for most households. It is incredibly simple to set-up and use on a day-to-day basis. Cisco have even created mobile apps for both Android and iOS that make it very easy to change settings on-the-fly.
The design of the Linksys EA6500 is simple but clearly effective. I do personally prefer a router that rests vertically as it reduces the footprint. That said if space is an issue then this router can also be wall-mounted.
The addition of two USB 2.0 ports will be useful for most, but while we didn't test them thoroughly the access times did seem to be slightly disappointing. This is the case with most routers … they certainly won't replace a good gigabit enabled NAS.
In terms of the performance of this device, we were very impressed. The range is a vast improvement on any previous generation router, and within 10 metres of the router it is possible to get some exceptional speeds on the 5.0 GHz band between 500 Mbps and nearly 900 Mbps, while still providing up to 450 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz band.
Of course, our limiting factor was the Netgear A6200 USB dongle which seems to top out at 866.5 Mbps. Hopefully in the near future there will be a new USB dongle that can reach the theoretical maximum of 1300 Mbps and potentially rival Gigabit Ethernet. However, this performance is very comparable with the ASUS RT-AC66U router we tested last November. There is more performance yet to be unleashed from both.
Overall, we were very impressed with this device. We like the simplicity and ease of access of the User Interface – the fact we were on the internet within minutes is ideal – but mostly, we love the performance. Couple this with the great features of the ‘Smart Wi-Fi' and the Android and iOS apps and you have a brilliant router which will cope with the strains of all your media-loving devices.
The price point is also a little cheaper than that of the ASUS RT-AC66U. The Linksys EA6500 can be purchased for £156 from dabs.com.
Pros
- Blistering performance
- Great Wireless range
- Easy set-up and configuration
- Useful app for mobile phones
- Can cope with lots of devices simultaneously
- Great price
- Future-proof router
Cons
- You have to upgrade USB dongles etc to get AC speeds
- Not many devices (Laptops/tablets etc) can currently take advantage of these speeds
Kitguru says: A performance monster at a reasonable price point.
Kitguru says: A future-proof router with more performance yet to be unleashed, ideal for households with lots of wireless devices.
