Netgear N600 vs. Linksys/Cisco E3200

We got a CIsco E3200 dual-band router for Christmas and decided to test it out. To improve the test machines a bit, I picked up a 5GHz friendly dual-band wifi card for Marko’s Windows 7 laptop. With only the 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks enabled at a time and a fixed channel, the following are roughly the figures we got for shooting a file over the LAN with the computers

E3200: 

• 2.4 GHz: 4-5 MB/s
• 5 GHz: 9-10MB/s

N600:

• 2.4GHz: 7-8 MB/s
• 5 GHz: ~15 MB/s

To be honest, I expected higher speeds given the theoretical maximum of 300 mbps/37.5 MB/s, but Internet tells me I shouldn’t complain and this isn’t that bad still. Nevertheless, since the Netgear has a much more extensive list of configuration interface options and features (HTTP and HTTPS serving of the connected USB drives via a built-in web server, guest wifi mode, fairly detailed bandwidth usage stats etc.), is currently cheaper at Future Shop and is subjectively much prettier in a sexy geeky kind of way, I think the choice is obvious. Now, how to exchange the gift…

1 month ago  /  2 notes  /  Comments