Cisco’s latest assault on the high-end router market not only aims to impress with its speed, but also isn’t a device you will want to hide in a cupboard–it actually looks nice.
Usually routers are a boxy affair in a matte black, white or silver finish with lots of aerials sticking out of them. The Linksys E4200 is different and Cisco has gone with a curvy, up-to-date design you really don’t mind looking at.
Away from the look of the device, there’s some serious speed on offer here. The E4200 has simultaneous dual-band wireless-N made possible by 6 internal antennas and can hit speeds of 450Mbps at 5GHz or 300Mbps at 2.4GHz.
If you live in a large house or need stronger signals Cisco has you covered too. A combination of internal and external amplifiers means the E4200 will provide a signal at greater distances than you typically expect from a standard wireless-N router.
On the back of the router you’ll find 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports, as well as a USB storage port allowing for file sharing over the built-in uPNP AV media server. Just plug in an external USB hard drive and use the media server to stream content across your network to different devices from it. That includes linking this to a TV or your iPad for video streaming, for example.
As for security, you get the standard WPA/WPA2 encryption options, plus there’s a Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) firewall built-in for added peace of mind. The less tech-savvy among us are catered for by the inclusion of Cisco Connect software which makes setup incredibly simple as well as offering parental controls and limited guest access if you need it.
As this is meant to be Cisco’s top-of-the-line router you can expect to pay a high price to get it. The official price being $179.99, but it should be cheaper when the router hits e-tailers.
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