Home > Consumer Reviews > Linksys WRT610N Simultaneous Dual-N Band Wireless Router

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As my title states it is a very good router, but only if you need it. The simultaneous feature only means that you can have items connected to the 2.4GHz band or the 5GHz band. However, please note that this does not mean that your laptop can connect to both at the same time. (I know some people who thought that it would.) That being said, what this feature is good for is if you are surfing the web on your laptop and are also streaming some high definition content to your television. That is when this router is beneficial, or if you are sharing the router with other people this can be a good feature allowing you to keep your own band without slowing down your bandwidth. But if you are like most people who will only be using the router to mainly surf the web on your laptop, then this router is not for you. It has too many features and is not worth the price.

The only complaints I have about the router are very minimal. Before I upgraded the firmware, anytime my laptop was connect to the 5GHz band it would lose the connection. The firmware update solved that problem. The other complaint involves the software that comes along with the router. While trying to install the software on my Vista desktop computer, it took over thirty minutes just to get it installed, and it still seemed a little "buggy." To me it was easier setting it up without the software, as I did on my Mac laptop. If you are skilled with Windows, you can also setup the router without the included software using the wizard found built into Vista and Win 7.

One downside to this router that I have noticed is that it does not have as good of a range as my other Netgear 2.4GHz wireless-N router. My laptop does not pull as strong of a signal from it even being just a few feet away, as it does on my other. My distance is also shortened quite considerably. However, my primary uses are using it within adjacent rooms, so that it not as big of a concern. It just does not get the same range outdoors as my other.

So if you are an advanced computer user who has a fully networked home then this is the router for you, or if you are somewhere with a lot of other signals causing interference such as a dorm, office, or apartment then this router can be good as you have the option to swap over to the 5GHz band without having to reset the router. *The 5GHz band has less interference so you get a cleaner signal but it cannot travel as far.

But, all-in-all, if your needs are simpler, then don't waste the extra money for features you don't need.

After a year of using the product:
Well I have had the product for close to a year now, and it works like a charm. I use it in my college dorm and find it to be perfect as I can use the 5GHz band and not have a lot of interference to my signal. The 5GHz band also seems to stream data slightly faster, which is beneficial when watching YouTube videos or an Amazon video-on-demand movie. Again, if you need the product - buy it - else look for something more reasonably priced. I might suggest the Netgear WNR834B. That is the router I have at home and it works wonderfully - also has a really nice range, even outdoors.

Also, when I last wrote this article I forgot to mention that one nice feature found on this router is the gigabit ethernet connections. This is wonderful for when transferring content from a desktop computer to a laptop or for a home media server. It has a much higher transfer rate than routers using the megabit connections. Please note that last time I had updated this article, I had said that the speed was not close to a "1 gigabyte per second" transfer rate. However, that was incorrect. The router has gigaBIT connections not gigaBYTE ones, which is a huge difference. My thanks go to the reviewer who pointed that out for me in the reply section.

I replaced an existing wired router/wireless access point combination with the WRT610N. The replacement was painless, taking about a half hour, including retyping all of my DHCP reservation and port forwarding information.

The only glitch was that running the Linksys EasyLink Advisor (a tool that among other things, shows you everything connected to your router) reset the router. This is fixed in the latest firmware (level 17, my router shipped with 16).

Speeds have been good. I only have one machine that is connected with Draft-N, and it has been able to connect about 4-5 times faster than my Wireless-G connections on the 5Mhz band. My Wireless-G connections have had consistently better quality than through my old WEP54G Access Point.

I bought this router to replace my old linksys and I have been pretty pleased with it so far. Somewhat foolishly I started installing this whilst I was in a hurry but all was well as it simply plugged in as a replacement and the software installed without issue. The LELA (or whatever its called) software updated the firmware to the latest version automatically and the software worked without fault. The router initially failed to connect to the internet but this was my ISP locking the connection to the mac address of my previous router. This was easily solved by using the MAC spoofing feature of the WRT610N - the router connected first time after that.

I liked the fact that it persuaded you to change the default passwords (there are so many people that don't change them on there routers). This thing seemed fairly security conscious.

The media connection feature allowed me to plug in a 750 WD USB external HDD (which it didn't see at first - this required a reboot) and I can configure it to share either the whole drive or certain folders - this worked perfectly in both XP and vista - I haven't tried this extensively so I don't know how it works long term. There is also a UPnP server and an FTP server built in (require the USB drive connected). These were really easy to set up.
Overall I have been pretty impressed by this product - setup was so easy that not only did I get it set up in a rush but I also had time to play with a few of the more advanced features.

This thing is not for the casual user - you need to know what you are buying and that you are going to use its features - if you are not there are other routers that will do a great job - this one happened to tick all the right boxes for me and I have not been disappointed so far - I was going to buy the WRT600N a few weeks ago but I am glad that fate stepped in and delayed me placing the order as the 610N is so much better looking than the 600N which is v. boxy and covered in antennas.

Overall a nice product so far and initial impression have been favorable. Only time will tell how good this holds up to some heavier testing. HD TV streaming here I come! :-)

I bought mine at a local retailer to replace a WRT54G. I wanted dual channel to support streaming N to a Media Center Extender. It kept dropping wireless connections every few minutes. Tech support gave suggestions, but they didn't help. Finally I did three things to stable it out. 1) Updated to the latest firmware (B18), 2) Reset to factory defaults to wipe out all the (non-successful) changes recommended by tech support, and 3) (the one that really fixed it), switched to WPA2 / AES for my encryption type. That caused other problems, because some of my older laptops with XP didn't support this. There is a Microsoft update to add this (web search for WPA2 & KB893357)- or you can install XP Service Pack 3 to get it. After that, this thing works reliably, fast, and is totally worth the price. I switched back to WEP to connect an older machine to update it - and the instability immediately returned.

I've been working with wireless routers since my first Beadlenet, seemingly a lifetime ago. I recently decided to upgrade my WRT54GS with the 610, primarily for the N band, but also because the 54GS kept requiring a reboot about twice a day. The 610 is my fifth Linksys router, and I have been a reliable Linksys customer - all my adapters are Linksys, every router (since the Beadlenet) has been a Linksys, and I honestly never even looked at D-Link or the others. That has now changed.

First, LELA (their Easy Link Advisor) caused a lot of problems. After going though it numerous times, it would just stare at me at the end of setup with "Cannot connect to router". OK, on to manual setup - no big deal, I've done this probably a hundred times or more.

I was able to finally get connected. With the router in the exact same place as my old one, my range on the 2.4Ghz band was well under half of what I was getting before. The router is in the basement, which with the 54GS allowed me to go anywhere even on the second story. Now, I cannot go to even the first story, nor can I go to the other end of the basement. Note that this is with the 2.4Ghz band, same as before. I've also successfully connected to the 5Ghz band, but that is even more limited; anything beyond the next room and I'm out of luck. I tried moving the router around - first floor, second floor, etc. - with no good results anywhere. The range is just severely limited compared to the older Linksys products.

Finally, being a glutton for punishment, I decided to try the USB storage. Keep in mind I work on computers and networking for a living. After 6 HOURS of setup, I could not reliably access the disk. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn't. Upgrading firmware did not solve this problem, nor did calls to Linksys.

I returned the router, tried another, with the exact same results. I suspect they have a significant problem with these internal antennas; Linksys is more than aware that their range is limited, but they prefer the sleek, "sexy" look over actual functionality. That's just too bad and will prove their undoing.

I am returning this unit and shopping for another brand. I've finally had enough with Linksys.