Designed for the modern office or ultra-wired home, the Linksys WRT610N Ultra RangePlus Simultaneous Dual-N Band Wireless Router is a sleek, stylish, and—most important—super-fast Wi-Fi router. The WRT610N trumps every other premier model from D-Link, Netgear, and Apple in both speed and price—and, at $149, it’s even cheaper than the previous generation Linksys WRT600N. There’s no question about it: This is the N router to own, for now.
Sleek Profile
The WRT610N combines the look of the earlier WRT160N with the performance of the WRT600N. It’s branded also with the Cisco logo, reflecting that company’s acquisition of Linksys. Forgoing an LCD display to show network problems and wireless speed—à la the Belkin N1 Vision and D-Link’s more recent DGL-4500 gaming router—the hand-size WRT610N fits nicely on a bookshelf where you may never notice it again. Yet it’s sleek enough to sit next to a MacBook Pro.
Like its WRT600N predecessor, the WRT610N supports WEP and WPA security, has a USB port for networked storage, runs at Gigabit Ethernet speed on its five wired ports, and supports Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS)—a way to add a router in Windows that’s faster and more secure. (We would have liked a more obvious label on the button and code used for WPS, though.)
Setup Like Magic
With help from Network Magic (who provided the underlying code), the setup wizard for Mac or PC prompts you with non-techie options, such as replacing an existing router versus adding the WRT610N to a router you already own. When you configure security (e.g., using WEP encryption instead of WPA), you’ll see unobtrusive warnings that educate rather than scold. The only glitch occurred when we tried to bridge the WRT610N with a D-Link DIR-655 router—to extend the range of both models using a long Ethernet cable—and noticed some serious driver and software conflicts.
After router setup, you have the option of installing LELA (Linksys EasyLink Advisor), which helps you troubleshoot network problems and see a graphical picture of your network. Again, it is based on Network Magic, and while impressive and easy to use, the software can also annoy you with pop-ups any time you attach a new Wi-Fi device or lose your Internet connection. The Mac and PC versions operated exactly the same. The older Linksys WPC600N PC Card we used for testing does not work with a Mac, although it’s not a major issue, as you’ll see from the test results.
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