The Linksys WRT1900AC box got to be the biggest box for a router that I have received. When I opened the box, everything is held in place with foam instead of cardboard and there is sponge sticked to the top of the box to protect the router. I have not seen such premium packaging before for a router.
The Linksys WRT1900AC will be retailing for S$399 which makes it the most expensive consumer router that I come across. It is even more expensive than the Asus RT-AC68U. It will be exclusively available at all Challenger outlets from 22nd May 2014 (yesterday) to 22nd June 2014. After that, it will be available at all other leading IT stores in Singapore from 23 June 2014 onwards.
I was using the Huawei MiFi E585 which I bought 4 years ago till the battery life decided to give up on me. The battery will go flat after about an hour of usage. On top of that I am spoilt with 4G because the 3G speed is way too slow in Singapore, due to bandwidth congestion.
The DIR-868L is a draft IEEE 802.11ac router that supports simultaneous dual band (2.4GHz + 5GHz) and can give you speed up to 450Mbps + 1,300Mbps. It is also a “cloud router”, in the sense that you can access your router basic settings via mydlink Lite app on iOS or Android.
Asus launched the world smallest router last week measuring 6.5cm long and weighing 17.5g, the Asus WL-330NUL. It is available since 20th May 2013 for S$59.
The Asus WL-330NUL is a 4-in-1 router, it acts like a router, USB Ethernet adapter, Wireless adapter, and supports hot spot sharing!
In my first part review of the Synology DiskStation DS413j, I talked about the Unboxing and Setup, in the second part review, I talked about the Performance, Backup & CloudStation and for this last review, I will talk about the multimedia features of the DS413j and that includes Video Station, Audio Station and Photo Station as well as their mobile apps, DS Video, DS Audio and DS Photo+ respectively.
There are a lot of features in the Video/Audio/Photo Station, and hence for this review, I will focus on my personal use case; I want to access/stream my music/video/photos stored in my Synology NAS wherever I am on my iPhone or Android.
I am being seeded the Synology DiskStation DS413j alongside with 3x WD Red 1TB hard disk drives for a 3 part review. For the first part, I will talk about the unboxing and setting up of the DS413j.
Since I only have 3x WD Red 1TB and the DS413j is a 4-bay NAS, I went to Sim Lim Square to get another WD Red 1TB so as not to let 1 of the bay goes to waste. I didn’t realized that WD Red 1TB is a pretty old HDD and most of the stores carry 2TB onwards. Luckily Bizgram still has some WD Red 1TB left. So I bought it for S$120.
Western Digital is entering into the router market with the launch of 3 routers and 2 routers with built-in storage. These routers are priced pretty competitively!
I will be reviewing the My Net N900 which is retailing for S$239.
It utilizes the new 802.11ac wireless technology (which is still under development) that allows you to have gigabit wireless speed. Most AC routers in the market right now is capable of a theoretical maximum speed of 1.3Gbps (3 x 433.3Mbps streams with 80MHz channels).
The Buffalo AirStation HighPower WCR-HP-G300 is a budget router that is retailing only for S$59. Since it is targeted at lower end consumers, the specifications are just entry level.
The router is only able to support LAN/WAN speeds of 10/100Mbps and 2.4GHz band for Wireless-N speed up to 300Mbps. On a side note, the router is extremely light.
