Thursday, June 26th, 2008

Linksys router review (now Mac compatible)

by

So one of the benefits of doing “The Lab with Leo” was getting in contact with lots of people who ship out gadgets for review. Now I’m doing the odd review for Freyburg, the first of which is the Linksys WRT600-N. First things first….I have NEVER, until now, installed a router where everything just worked. Every single router I’ve used, whether from Linksys, D-Link, or otherwise, has given me some form of incompatibility grief. Even my dad’s Airport wouldn’t talk to both his new iMac and his old iMac. The 600N, however, had no problem finding my Macbook Pro, my girlfriend’s Macbook Pro, our Xbox 360 (a sticking point with many other routers) and even my iPhone (though even though it connects, it goes by the old name and not the assigned name I gave the router).

It works as advertised…it’s considerably faster than my old wireless G router, with streaming and downloaded video starting almost immediately and a noticeably faster browsing experience. You can attach a hard drive to it for network enabled storage, though I haven’t bothered to do so yet. Given how easy the rest of the routers functions were to set up, I’m assuming it’ll be pretty painless as well. Linksys also announced new Mac setup wizards for their routers, which should make things easier for the install-challenged. I didn’t have any trouble installing it by hand, but some Mac users might, so the new installation software is probably a wise move. The original price of the router was $279, but that price seems to have gone down to $150 to $180, depending on where you go online to find a unit. Overall….a win!

Warren Frey is a journalist, freelance writer, podcaster, video producer, and all-around media consultant currently based in Vancouver, Canada. His written work has appeared in such publications as Metro Vancouver, the Westender, Mac | Life and the Japan Times.

7 Responses to “ Linksys router review (now Mac compatible) ”

cam c. says:

I’m sure Linksys wouldn’t officially want to tout this as a feature but I believe the community behind open source firmware replacements for Linksys routers is very close to or has already figured out a way to install their firmware on this beast as well, so that’s another consideration…

I am Steven says:

This sounds less like than a review, but more like an endorsement…….How much is Linksys paying you, Freyburg?????

Warren says:

Haha, nothing……I got sent a review unit, I reviewed it, the end. 🙂

I am Steven says:

Right. Gotcha.

Your move, D-Link…..

Chris Burgess says:

I dig my Linksys G router if only because of the fact I can (and did) install DD-WRT onto it to get a much more malleable set of options with the firmware. Other than that, I don’t give a toss about router brands. Except SMC, nothing but problems with those hunks of crap.

david fay says:

Chris,
I have a Linsky’s g router too and want to install dd-wry but cannot find instructions how to do it with a mac. It seems the ones I find have a pc (.exe) file to download. can you share how you did it?

JeanMichel says:

linksys latest generation routers(for example linksys e1000)fully support MAC .
however, the problem remain with linux

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