Linksys ships the WRT600N router and WPC600N notebook adapter

It's been almost a year since we first peeped the Linksys WRT600N, and although the company missed that estimated CES ship date, it's finally released the ominous-looking box for an MSRP of $279. As hinted by the model number, the router features 802.11n, but implements it simultaneously over both the 2.4 and 5GHz frequency bands, which should result in smoother connections for devices that support 5GHz. You're also looking at four Gigabit Ethernet ports, built-in FTP and UPnP A/V servers, and Storage Link, which lets you turn any USB storage device into a NAS. Linksys is also touting its Easy Link Advisor setup software, which we're certain most of you will never open. Connecting to this bad boy is the $99 WPC600N PC Card, which features the same Broadcom Intensi-Fi chipset as the 600N router. Both router and card should be in stores now, according to Linksys, with ExpressCard and USB adapters shipping in the first quarter of 2008.

[scott @ Oct 23rd 2007 8:29PM]

So, it's the first real alternative to the Airport Extreme base station, only about a hundred bucks more.

[azayzel @ Oct 23rd 2007 9:41PM]

Totally agree about that price factor issue. Whow in their right mind would spend that much for the base-station alone, let alone another hunny for the card! Until this thing hits the $50-price range, I'll stick with my WRT54G w/ custom f/w.

[Peter @ Oct 23rd 2007 8:39PM]

Wow, and i thought the Linksys routers i had seen *until now* had been ugly as hell, seems i underestimated them.
I hope it was as cheap to design as it looks, not sure that's actually possible...

[bombastinator @ Oct 23rd 2007 10:10PM]

it's the same case as the 300n, and as an owner of one of those I can attest to it's horrible design.

the "radar dish" is particularly cheap looking. None of the antennae are either removable or capable of a large range of motion. This makes the thing difficult to put in out of the way spaces and tacky if placed where one can see it.

[mfed3 @ Oct 23rd 2007 10:53PM]

who cares what it looks like? oh yea apple fanboys do. keep it in ur basement or attic, it can be the size of a refrigerator as long as its cheap and has good performance.

[bombastinator @ Oct 23rd 2007 11:37PM]

I should mention the performance sucks too. The antenna factor was mostly important because it limited where the device could be placed, though as it happens I do have to keep the thing in my living room, so a device without a non removable fake radar dish with all the utility of 50's automobile fins would be nice.

[huh @ Oct 24th 2007 1:04AM]

@bombastinator, do you mean the fact it has diversity antennas, a feature of 802.11n? I don't think the "radar dish" antenna is fake.

[Christian Torkelson @ Oct 23rd 2007 8:40PM]

Thats a mean looking piece of equipment.

[Patrick @ Oct 23rd 2007 8:50PM]

"And, now Your Highness, we will discuss the location of your
hidden Rebel base"

[vasu @ Oct 23rd 2007 8:52PM]

I used to be a huge Linksys wireless fan, but after going through 4 WRT-350N routers, and dealing with their horrible horrible horrible telephone support (it was a 2 hour phone call each time, where we started with checking if the power was on, each time) I finally gave up on them and got a Airport Extreme-N Gigabit and everything's been rock solid since.

[Jesse S @ Oct 23rd 2007 8:58PM]

n isn't even a standard yet. Only idiots buy n equipment now.

[bombastinator @ Oct 23rd 2007 11:42PM]

It makes sense if the main device connected to the network is a laptop who's wifi card is draft-n. It's the fastest that laptop will likely ever go.

[Panq @ Oct 24th 2007 5:53AM]

I'll bet no-one notices when 802.11n is finally finalised and the first equipment arrives because of all the jerks referring to draft-n equipment as 802.11n...

You'd also think someone whose job it is to write in certian blogs about tech news would be careful enough to notice the distinction, but alas, no.

Sigh.

[why not the LS2/LS7? @ Oct 23rd 2007 9:09PM]

I had the previous version of this. The file server (Storage Link) software was so buggy as to be useless and Linksys never fixed it.

The software would correct the date/time on files for your time zone as you wrote them, but not when you read them back. So every file always looked like it had been modified since you last wrote it if you checked the date. This messed up myriad programs and the only fix was to set the timezone to UTC.

Make no mistake, Linksys has no interest in making any of the non-base station features of this products work right, they just use them as selling points.

[why not the LS2/LS7? @ Oct 24th 2007 3:45AM]

Oh, as an added bonus, if you looked at the manual for the device, it didn't even explain how to USE the Storage Link functionality. It sort of explained how to set it up, but it never explained how to mount it from a PC. What good is a server if you can't connect to it?

It didn't even say it was an SMB server, let alone give steps to connect to it. I guess that would cut down on people trying to contact support because it didn't work right...

I asked a friend of mine about it. He used to be a Linksys fan. He says he recently stopped being a Linksys fan and won't buy their stuff anymore. This, despite the fact that he works at Cisco (who owns Linksys)! I used to like Linksys too. But I use Netgear now. And I have an Apple base station. It doesn't do 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz simultaneously (I wish it did), but it does work. I can share a hard drive and a printer from it (simultaneously!) and mount the drive from a Mac and PC successfully.

[Dan Parmelee @ Oct 23rd 2007 9:57PM]

$279? Ouch. Apple AirPort Extreme has offered basically identical features for about $100 less for quite some time. It also does 802.11a.

[Luigi193 @ Oct 23rd 2007 10:27PM]

Yeah, my airport has been awesome!!!

[bombastinator @ Oct 23rd 2007 11:48PM]

Apple has a rep for creating very very good, but quite expensive base stations. This one isn't even vaguely cheap though.
If the airport N base station is price comparable with this one I'd say it was a no-brainer for apple.

[huh @ Oct 24th 2007 1:05AM]

@bombastinator, look carefully, does your Apple Airport N have all these features?

[Andrew @ Oct 25th 2007 6:32PM]

Yes, but will it play Doo--err, Will it run DD-WRT?

It says a Broadcom processor, so I'm thinking (hoping) yes?

[tundraboy @ Oct 24th 2007 3:13AM]

I keep thinking "Lost in Space"-- Danger, danger, Will Robinson!

[evan @ Oct 24th 2007 3:58AM]

My Linksys WRT300N started smoking and nearly caught fire two weekends ago. I bought an apple airport to replace it, but immediately wished I hadn't. Apple routers don't have a web interface and must be accessed through their proprietary client program that only runs on Windows or MacOS. And really, who uses those OS's anymore?

So now I've got a virtualized windows XP system just so I can reconfigure it when I need to!

[Panq @ Oct 24th 2007 6:10AM]

Doesn't really matter about OS support. Even if they released a Linux/Unix version of their proprietary router configuration software, their router configuration would still require proprietary software.

[csony @ Oct 24th 2007 12:28PM]

Chances are it won't work any better for Macs than the WRT300 or 100 - neither worked properly on my all-mac home network and the best that Linksys support could do was to suggest I unpackage the Win-only firmware and manually upgrade the firmware - no promises that it would work - and of course it would void the warranty by doing so since by using an unpackaged firmware app.

[Lee Willis @ Oct 24th 2007 8:14PM]

I have tried two versions of the WRT350N. They both sucked. Neither was able to connect to the internet via my Comcast cablem odem (but a WRT54G works just fine). This appears to be a known issue, but one that LinkSys won't admit to.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19108272-WRT350N-Im-just-stunned

http://forums.linksys.com/linksys/board/message?board.id=Wireless_Routers&message.id=61871

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r18940798-New-firmware-1036-for-WRT350N-v1

[fumducket @ Oct 26th 2007 2:11PM]

I'm not touching this router. I made the mistake of buying the WRT-300N believing in Linksys' lies and marketing ploys. They've spit out more routers using this draft-N than I ever saw early on with the G spec. Not getting it right maybe? Provide some quality support and maybe people will actually trust you enough to keep buying your overrated tech.

http://digg.com/hardware/Linksys_What_a_waste

[rgoode @ Nov 20th 2007 10:58PM]

Is there any 3rd party firmware out for the WRT600N?