Home > Consumer Reviews > Linksys by Cisco WRT400N Dual-Band Wireless-N Router
Linksys by Cisco WRT400N Dual-Band Wireless-N Router
See it at Amazon.com for $79.98Average Customer Rating
(3.5 out of 5)
Amazon Customer Reviews
Most Helpful First | Newest First | + Share44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent product very pleased after tons of research
(5 out of 5) by J. Parks on Jul 17, 2009Like many of you, I find it very difficult to get clear information on networking products on-line. Unlike other electronic devices, it seems that there are a ton of bozos out there all weighing in on how horrid their router is, when either they don't know what they're doing or they have physicial challenges that aren't the hardware's fault.
Suffice it to say that I did a ton of research before buying this product. As it turned out, Amazon has the best price (inclusive of shipping, of course) - but I checked out the reviews on CNET, NewEgg, and anywhere else I could find information.
The best resouce I found was here - at SmallNetBuilder.com.
[...]
This guy really puts the devices through their paces and seems to be relatively unbiased in his approach. I tip my hat to him.
This product is fast and relatively easy to set up. Most importantly it has TWO radios. What this means to you is that you will see TWO different versions of the router when it is on-line. If you'd like you can dedicate one of the channels for N and one for B/G. This is all laid out very clearly on the Linksys product website, should you wish to check that out.
You'll see many products that say "Dual Band" (it can operate in both frequencies) but be careful because unless the product says "Simultaneous transmission" it will not do so at the same time. So if you have, like we do in my house, N users and G users, and you want different security or other settings on the various channels Simultaneous Transmission is the way to go. There may be other reasons to go this route including Media streaming or gaming on the 5 ghz band - this is particularly true if you simply want to eliminate wires and aren't trying to stream your N/5 GHz signal very far.
If you have realistic expectations of what this product will do - and especially if you don't need a Gigabit ethernet connection on your network (I have a Gigabit switch for my wired boxes, which means that transfers to those machines get 'slowed down' to 100 GHz when they are interfacing with the wireless world, but from a practical perspective I haven't noticed any slowing!) this is, by far, the wireless router to get.
I'm not going to argue with the folks who say that they don't see a speed improvement, but I can tell you that we see speed improvements on both the N spectrum and the G spectrum relative to our old Belkin pre-N router.
Finally, the design looks funky in pictures and in the videos that I saw. In the home it's pretty swank looking and certainly less noticable relative to something with exterior antenae. So another tip of the cap to the designers.
Overall I'm very impressed with this device and pleased to give it 5 stars!
Suffice it to say that I did a ton of research before buying this product. As it turned out, Amazon has the best price (inclusive of shipping, of course) - but I checked out the reviews on CNET, NewEgg, and anywhere else I could find information.
The best resouce I found was here - at SmallNetBuilder.com.
[...]
This guy really puts the devices through their paces and seems to be relatively unbiased in his approach. I tip my hat to him.
This product is fast and relatively easy to set up. Most importantly it has TWO radios. What this means to you is that you will see TWO different versions of the router when it is on-line. If you'd like you can dedicate one of the channels for N and one for B/G. This is all laid out very clearly on the Linksys product website, should you wish to check that out.
You'll see many products that say "Dual Band" (it can operate in both frequencies) but be careful because unless the product says "Simultaneous transmission" it will not do so at the same time. So if you have, like we do in my house, N users and G users, and you want different security or other settings on the various channels Simultaneous Transmission is the way to go. There may be other reasons to go this route including Media streaming or gaming on the 5 ghz band - this is particularly true if you simply want to eliminate wires and aren't trying to stream your N/5 GHz signal very far.
If you have realistic expectations of what this product will do - and especially if you don't need a Gigabit ethernet connection on your network (I have a Gigabit switch for my wired boxes, which means that transfers to those machines get 'slowed down' to 100 GHz when they are interfacing with the wireless world, but from a practical perspective I haven't noticed any slowing!) this is, by far, the wireless router to get.
I'm not going to argue with the folks who say that they don't see a speed improvement, but I can tell you that we see speed improvements on both the N spectrum and the G spectrum relative to our old Belkin pre-N router.
Finally, the design looks funky in pictures and in the videos that I saw. In the home it's pretty swank looking and certainly less noticable relative to something with exterior antenae. So another tip of the cap to the designers.
Overall I'm very impressed with this device and pleased to give it 5 stars!
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Linksys WRT400N Simultaneous Dual-Band Wireless-N Router
(5 out of 5) by Steve C. on Jun 5, 2009 (Austin, TX)After purchasing the LG 390BD for playing Blueray dvd's and to watch streaming movies and older TV shows from Netflix I discovered my Belkin N1 router would not work with security settings turned on. A Belkin tech assisted me with setting the router up again and alah it worked. Unfortuantly after turning the Bluray player off and on again I could not log into my Netflix instant queue again. After hours of research I discovered that Linksys routers supposedly got along best with Netflix instant streaming. I purchased and installed the WRT400n yesterday. First the router, than the wireless network for my wife's computer and lastly the LG390BD. Linksys supplies software that works flawlessly for me. A Very easy setup. A graphic of the setup (suppled by Linksys)shows all connections to network including the LG390BD. I now have full security on my network and devices have worked perfectly since setup. This is my first review so a big thanks to all that take time to review items that haver helped me make wise purchase decisions in the past.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
Not For Long Range
(3 out of 5) by Gadget Man on Jun 27, 2009 (California)I was looking to get longer range than my trusty Linksys WRT54G, so I go this WRT400N. The setup was very smooth -- no issues there except for one. Before I set up the WRT400N by computer took 2 minutes to re-boot. Afterwards it took 3.5 minutes. I'm not sure why, except that I think Linksys installed a Microsoft .Net Framework version that slowed the system.
If you can set up the router without the software, you're better off. Here's other notable issues:
1. The 5 Ghz is pretty worthless. It's range is far shorter than the 2.4 Ghz. So unless you're planning to use the 5 Ghz band in the same room as the router, or maybe the room immediately very immediately)next door, it is useless.
2. The 2.4 Ghz works well enough. It doesn't drop the connection or any problems like that. What I found was that operating in G mode only actually had a longer range than the N mode only -- go figure.
In my setup my router is in the main house, and the family room is in another building over the garage (small catwalk between the two). So I need a router to send a signal out of one building and into another, total distance is perhaps 50 feet. In G mode only the WRT400N does give a slightly stronger signal than the WRT54G. But in N mode, the strength of the signal drops enough that it is about the same as the WRT54G, and slightly less than the 400N's own G signal.
Adapter Experience
==================
I decided to get the Linksys wireless-N USB dual bank adapter for the family room, thinking it would match up best with the WRT400N router. Guess again...it didn't. The adapter was less effective than the old Linksys USB G adapter. The 5 GHz band at first detected nothing even though the WRT400N was broadcasting in N mode on that bank from about 50 feet away. After fidling with the position of the router and the adapter, I finally picked up the 5GHz signal -- but it was weak, and eventually dropped in use. I finally tried a cheaper SMC adapter and it received the signals from the WRT400N significantly better than the twice as expensive Linksys adapter.
Bottom line -- the router is a good router in 2.4 GHz band, and not much use in the 5GHz band. The range is decent, but not significantly better than the old reliable WRT54G (which is a great router).
If you can set up the router without the software, you're better off. Here's other notable issues:
1. The 5 Ghz is pretty worthless. It's range is far shorter than the 2.4 Ghz. So unless you're planning to use the 5 Ghz band in the same room as the router, or maybe the room immediately very immediately)next door, it is useless.
2. The 2.4 Ghz works well enough. It doesn't drop the connection or any problems like that. What I found was that operating in G mode only actually had a longer range than the N mode only -- go figure.
In my setup my router is in the main house, and the family room is in another building over the garage (small catwalk between the two). So I need a router to send a signal out of one building and into another, total distance is perhaps 50 feet. In G mode only the WRT400N does give a slightly stronger signal than the WRT54G. But in N mode, the strength of the signal drops enough that it is about the same as the WRT54G, and slightly less than the 400N's own G signal.
Adapter Experience
==================
I decided to get the Linksys wireless-N USB dual bank adapter for the family room, thinking it would match up best with the WRT400N router. Guess again...it didn't. The adapter was less effective than the old Linksys USB G adapter. The 5 GHz band at first detected nothing even though the WRT400N was broadcasting in N mode on that bank from about 50 feet away. After fidling with the position of the router and the adapter, I finally picked up the 5GHz signal -- but it was weak, and eventually dropped in use. I finally tried a cheaper SMC adapter and it received the signals from the WRT400N significantly better than the twice as expensive Linksys adapter.
Bottom line -- the router is a good router in 2.4 GHz band, and not much use in the 5GHz band. The range is decent, but not significantly better than the old reliable WRT54G (which is a great router).
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Love this device. Easy to set up and use.
(5 out of 5) by J. A. Masters on Sep 22, 2009 (Palm Bay, FL United States)There were lots of mixed reviews on this. It seems to either be wonderful or to cause the downfall of civilization.
For me it falls into the category of "Greatest thing since sliced bread."
We have had internet through our cable company for years, and had gotten to the point where our internet speed into the house was much faster than our old 802.11b wireless system could handle.
We all just avoided watching videos because they were slow and choppy, but I finally decided to upgrade to take advantage of all that bandwidth.
Put in the Linksys cd in our main family computer where the cable modem and wireless box sit, and follow the super easy instructions.
Wrote down the new secret key and then went to the other computers and entered this into the setup for the wireless adapters on those computers. Now all laptops and desktops in the house are blazing fast and we can watch movies, youtube, whatever, with nary a problem.
On my own desktop, I had a -b wireless adapter that I upgraded to the Linksys dual-frequency wireless adapter. Now my own computer is on 5Ghz, while everyone else and the netflix ready blu-ray player (LG BD 390) are on 2.4GHz. As we can, we'll upgrade some other computers to dual-band to widen our options, or save the 5GHz for future products.
Anyway, just wanted to throw in my two cents on this particular dual-band wireless router.
It was insanely easy to set up and connect to all of our computers. We now have internet that is literally 3 times faster than last week, plus we can stream videos through Netflix on our blu-ray player because of this new Linksys box.
The whole family spent the weekend on the computers marvelling at the increased speed, and adding each person's choices to Netflix instant streaming and watching them on the TV, all because of this Linksys router.
Well worth the money for this device, and we haven't experienced any drop outs of signal or signal weakness either.
(Also, I bought this through Amazon, who had the best price I could find, used free shipping and still got it in 4 days. I've mostly had good luck with Amazon's free shipping. They tell you up front it might take a while, but out of probably 8 or so orders where I chose the free shipping, only one order ever took more than 7 days to get to me.)
For me it falls into the category of "Greatest thing since sliced bread."
We have had internet through our cable company for years, and had gotten to the point where our internet speed into the house was much faster than our old 802.11b wireless system could handle.
We all just avoided watching videos because they were slow and choppy, but I finally decided to upgrade to take advantage of all that bandwidth.
Put in the Linksys cd in our main family computer where the cable modem and wireless box sit, and follow the super easy instructions.
Wrote down the new secret key and then went to the other computers and entered this into the setup for the wireless adapters on those computers. Now all laptops and desktops in the house are blazing fast and we can watch movies, youtube, whatever, with nary a problem.
On my own desktop, I had a -b wireless adapter that I upgraded to the Linksys dual-frequency wireless adapter. Now my own computer is on 5Ghz, while everyone else and the netflix ready blu-ray player (LG BD 390) are on 2.4GHz. As we can, we'll upgrade some other computers to dual-band to widen our options, or save the 5GHz for future products.
Anyway, just wanted to throw in my two cents on this particular dual-band wireless router.
It was insanely easy to set up and connect to all of our computers. We now have internet that is literally 3 times faster than last week, plus we can stream videos through Netflix on our blu-ray player because of this new Linksys box.
The whole family spent the weekend on the computers marvelling at the increased speed, and adding each person's choices to Netflix instant streaming and watching them on the TV, all because of this Linksys router.
Well worth the money for this device, and we haven't experienced any drop outs of signal or signal weakness either.
(Also, I bought this through Amazon, who had the best price I could find, used free shipping and still got it in 4 days. I've mostly had good luck with Amazon's free shipping. They tell you up front it might take a while, but out of probably 8 or so orders where I chose the free shipping, only one order ever took more than 7 days to get to me.)
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Easy set-up, reliable, thank god
(5 out of 5) by R. Hart on Jun 28, 2009 (CHICAGO, IL United States)After spending a ton of time looking over router reviews, I finally took the plunge with the Linksys Dual-Band Wireless-N Router. Since almost every router had extreme reviews - either they're great or disasters - I had a tough time making a decision. Anyway, I have had the Wireless N up for a couple days now. So far I can say 2 things about it: 1) set-up was a total breeze. I was up on 2 laptops wirelessly within 15 minutes. 2) reliable - have not been kicked off once in 2 days. I have not messed around yet with the advanced features but the 2 most important things for me were being able to get it to work and having it be reliable.