The Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Router AC 1900 (WRT1900AC)($328.98 at Amazon) is without question the most ambitious consumer wireless router networking hardware available. The unit is a big, beefy router, with a big, beefy price to match. You get a lot for your coin, however, including very good performance. The WRT1900AC offers other goodies, too, such as the ability to flash the firmware with soon-to-be-availale OpenWRT (giving networking geeks the potential for complete network control), excellent performance as a NAS (with a USB drive attached to its USB 3.0 port), wonderful QoS, great range in the 2.4GHz band, and easy, well-honed remote access and management.
A caveat is in order, however, when it comes to the router's excellent performance: Testing with a second WRT1900AC router set up as a bridge produced amazing wireless throughput, the likes of which we'd never seen. But that throughput is only achieved using another 802.11ac device as a bridge. You won't see such speeds with most of the mobile devices and wireless adapters you're likely to own.
Specs
The WRT1900AC is basically the WRT54G of yesteryear, but on steroids. It measures 1.5 by 10 by 7.5 inches (HWD) and weighs 2.25 pounds. In comparison, the Linksys Wireless-G 2.4GHz Router (WRT54G), was just 1.5 by 7.5 by 6 inches (HWD) and weighed 0.96 of a pound.
Inside, this dual-band, 802.11ac router is stuffed with a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor, 256MB of DDR3 RAM, and 128MB of Flash memory. It's got a Gigabit WAN port, as well as four Gigabit LAN ports. In addition, on the back panel is a USB 3.0 port and a combination USB 2.0/eSATA port. You'll also find WPS, reset, and on/off buttons on the back.
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Although it's relatively heavy, the W1900AC is still wall- and ceiling-mountable, via grooves in its rubber feet. There are also air flow vents all over the housing. Its internal components are built for performance, and this means it has the potential to overheat.
In fact, there is such concern that Linksys put a fan inside, further lending to the unit's massive size. The documentation has an insert with a picture of the router with a book placed on top of it, crossed out in a big, red circle. Even without the fan, you wouldn't want to sit anything atop this device, and you will certainly want to keep it somewhere with good airflow.
The fan helps: During testing, the router was quite warm, but it did not get hot—even after several hours of uptime. I did notice a fairly strong odor from the device. My colleague described it as that "hot electronics" odor. Electronic devices do have a certain smell, but typically, it's barely noticeable. That electric scent was a bit stronger with the WRT1900AC—not surprising, given the Linksys' powerful internal hardware.
Four short, fat dipole antennas attach to the sides and the rear of this router. I really like their sturdy construction. My focus on the antennas may seem strange, but many times when we review routers with external antennas, they're so flimsy, they flop over or end up breaking. The WRT1900AC's antennas are not only solid, but they are also designed with three-stream spatial architecture that allows the router to use the best three out of its four signals to transmit and receive data.
This is an impressive-looking, well-engineered router. It's definitely a geek-conversation starter, which is just as well, since you can't hide it away inside a crowded entertainment cabinet, due to its ventilation requirements.
Setting Up the Big Boy
The WRT1900AC ships with a quick-start guide, as well as documentation on a disc. I followed Linksys's recommendations for setup. First, I disconnected the existing router on my test network. Next, I connected the WRT1900AC to my broadband service via its Internet port. After that, it was a matter of waiting for the power LED on the front to stop blinking.
I have to mention the LEDs on this router—they are unlike any I've seen. Instead of the traditional small circles that light up on most devices with LEDs, they are horizontal and look super cool. Plus, the shape and size make them easy to see across a room. There are LEDs on front representing activity statuses for power, Internet connection, the 2.4GHz band, the 5GHz band, the eSATA port, the USB ports, each of the LAN ports, and WPS.
Once the power LED stops blinking, you connect to the preconfigured network on the router. This is done by connecting wirelessly (the SSID and passphrase are printed on the bottom of the router) or by connecting a computer to one of the LAN ports on the router via an Ethernet cable.
I then opened a browser to launch the Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Router setup instructions. I was redirected to the setup wizard right away. Alternatively, you can type in linksyssmartwifi.com to start the wizard.
The install process takes you through typical, preliminary setup steps: Agree to TOS, choose to auto-install updates (or not), edit the pre-configured SSID and password (which is advisable, for security reasons), and create a password for the router's admin account. The WRT1900AC supports up to two SSIDs on each band, and you can also set up guest networking on each band.
Remote Access and Management
Remote Access and Management
One of the defining features of Linksys Smart routers, including the WRT1900AC, is the ability to manage and access them remotely. This is achieved by creating a Linksys Smart Wi-Fi account. With this account, you can remotely access a home network, download additional apps for management, configure QoS for HD video and gaming, and manage other Linksys Smart Wi-Fi routers.
Two years ago, when Linksys was still part of Cisco, it was introduced as Cisco Connect Cloud. When it debuted, it was nothing short of a disaster, even rendering some customers' Cisco Linksys routers unusable. Since then, Linksys has honed the service almost to perfection. The interface for managing your Linksys Smart Router is the same whether you are using the local management UI or a remote Smart Wi-Fi account. The features of the management interface have not changed much since the launch of Linksys's EA6900 AC1900 Smart Wi-Fi Wireless Router last year. I'll get into the UI and a few new features in the WRT1900AC next.
Features and Interface
The UI for managing the WRT1900AC looks the same as it did on the other Linksys Smart routers that came out last year; it remains responsive and uncluttered. An improved Network Map shows all the devices connected to your network and how they are connected (for example, you see the router connected to the Internet broadband and other devices on the network connected to the router). It's a quick, easy way to get an overview of your network topology. You can also set up DHCP address reservations via Network Map.
The router includes most of the features typical home network users would need, such as USB ports that support printer and USB drive sharing. However, besides a few advanced capabilities such as VLAN tagging and support for Dynamic DNS (including NoIP), there aren't many small-business-class or advanced features in the WRT1900AC. For example, there is no full VPN, although VPN passthrough is supported. Also, you can't really tweak wireless settings granularly. There is no option to set the 5GHz band at 802.11ac-only mode at a channel width of 80MHz. But that's okay, because there aren't yet enough wireless devices that support 802.11ac-only. Instead, you can run 5GHz in a mixed-mode setting which includes 11ac and 802.11n/a; you would then set the channel width to auto.
I was surprised by this restriction, because many 802.11ac routers, such as the Netgear Nighthawk ($129.99 at Amazon), do allow you to set 5GHz in 11ac-only mode. According to a Linksys rep, the company set up 5GHz this way to ward any compatibility issues, since 802.11ac has just been ratified. An 11ac-only mode will be considered in the future when 11ac clients are more common.
This is actually a prudent decision. However, I do think that, for a router of this price, Linksys should let the obviously technical type of customer the WRT1900AC is targeted at make the decision. The caveat should be that there may be compatibility issues in setting 5GHz to 802.11ac-only mode. I assume we will see more of the advanced features showing up in the upcoming OpenWRT firmware update, which we'll cover in a separate review when it's available.
One feature likely to appeal to techies: The WRT1900AC can operate in bridge or repeater mode. Linksys sent me two units, and I configured one in bridge mode. It's a much easier process than configuring a Netgear Nighthawk router as a bridge. With the WRT1900AC, setting up a second unit in bridge mode is pretty much automated via the UI and WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup). In the Nighthawk, by contrast, it's practically a manual process, and quite sloppy.
WRT1900AC Performance
WRT1900AC Performance
When I tested the WRT1900AC's wireless performance with another WRT1900AC set up as a bridge, it turned in the highest throughput I've ever seen in a wireless device review: 449Mbps at 5GHz. This may not sound like much when a router's theoretical combined maximum throughput is 1,900Mbps, but this is amazing throughput testing in our very real-world wireless environment in a high-rise building with many, many access points. The throughput in a home or small-business environment with fewer APs around should be phenomenal.
That said, you do need 802.11ac client hardware on par with the WRT1900ac's, and those aren't on the market yet. So I did the rest of my testing with our usual testing equipment: Two business-class laptops with on-board 3x3 802.11N wireless adapters.
5GHz performance is the WRT1900AC's sweet spot. It's very good—in the triple digits—but it's not the best I've tested with comparable routers using the same test equipment. For example, in 5GHz mixed mode, at a distance of 15 feet from the router, using Ixia's IxChariot throughput test, the WRT1900ac averaged a speed of 110Mbps. The Nighthawk fared better at 5GHz in 802.11ac mode, averaging 174Mbps. The Asus RT-AC66U Dual Band 3x3 802.11AC Gigabit Router falls between the two, at 129Mbps.
Setting the WRT1900AC in 802.11n-only mode at the 5GHz band did not affect the throughput much; I got an average of 111Mbps of wireless throughput. Netgear's Nighthawk did a little better, at 121Mbps. The Asus RT-AC66U Dual Band 3x3 802.11AC Gigabit Router($118.00 at Amazon) also did better than the WRT1900AC in 802.11n-only mode, averaging 164Mbps.
In 2.4GHz mixed mode at 15 feet from the Linksys router, wireless throughput averaged 83Mbps. Turning the 2.4GHz band into N-Only mode, the throughput averaged 78Mbps, beating the Nighthawk's 69Mbps average, and besting the Asus' average of 65Mbps.
While the RT-AC66U and Nighthawk both clocked better performance at the 5GHz band, there isn't enough difference between the three routers' numbers to make the wireless throughput speed at the 5GHz band wildly different, no matter which of them you chose. In environments with the lots of HD video streaming, the Asus's nimbler performance might make a slight difference.
I was impressed with the WRT1900AC's range. No matter which mode I configured at the 5GHz band, testing 5 feet from the router and then moving to 30 feet away, I only recorded a 3 percent signal decrease. The Nighthawk made an impressive 2 percent gain in speed testing when moving from 5 feet to 30 feet, but it dropped signal throughput by 12 percent in 802.11n mode at 5GHz. The Asus router, like the WRT1900AC, dropped by 3 percent with its 5GHz band set to 11ac mode, but then dropped 14 percent in 802.11n mode. I saw the same pattern at the 2.4GHz band, with the WRT1900AC sustaining good throughput at greater range.
Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Router AC 1900 (WRT1900AC) 5GHz throughput
Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Router AC 1900 (WRT1900AC) 2.4GHz mixed mode throughput
Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Router AC 1900 (WRT1900AC) 2.4GHz n-only mode throughput
The device's robust specs give killer read/write performance as a NAS. I copied a 1.5GB video clip to a Western Digital My Passport USB drive connected to the USB 3.0 port. The file copy tested at 66MBps writes and 80MBps reads—that is performance on par with dedicated consumer/SOHO NASes configured at RAID levels 0 and 1. If you want to do further comparisons with dedicated NASes, check out The Top 10 NAS devices.
Media prioritization, once enabled, also vastly improved the time it took to buffer a Netflix movie. With the feature disabled, the time from clicking a movie to play to watching it was 26 seconds. With media prioritization enabled that time was reduced to just 5 seconds.
WRT1900AC Better for Techie Early Adopters
Networking geeks have been eagerly anticipating the WRT1900AC, no doubt a result of the nostalgia over the WRT54G which was, as many of us in IT joke, the first router everyone set up for themselves or for someone else. What makes the WRT1900AC even sweeter is the ability to flash it with the upcoming open-source firmware. Networking geeks like having complete control over their devices, and this type of firmware upgradability should give them just that.
But what about everyone else? There is no question that you get an excellent router in the WRT1900AC. It's very easy to set up and manage, and it's powerful. Yet, for the price, you really aren't getting any better performance when connected to the current-gen wireless clients or adapters. Most are not built to leverage the full speed of triple stream 802.11ac. They are coming, but they're not here yet. You will see performance just as good from slightly cheaper routers, such as the Asus RT-AC66U or the Netgear Nighthawk, although the WRT1900AC has the edge in range.
In the meantime, however, the WRT1900AC allows you to immediately take advantage of powerful extra goodies such as its excellent NAS capability, very good QoS, and the ability to flash it with updated firmware. Add all that to its future-proof fast throughput, and Linksys has got a clear Editors' Choice winner in the Smart Wi-Fi Router AC 1900 (WRT1900AC). It's pricey, but it's worth every penny.
The Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Router AC 1900 (WRT1900AC) delivers excellent throughput with current-gen wireless clients, and promises killer speeds for future devices. In the meantime, upcoming OpenWRT flashable firmware, wonderful QoS, easy setup, and powerful NAS functionality, for a hefty price
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