Asus RT-AC66U 802.11ac Dual-Band Wireless-AC1750 Gigabit Router

The RT-AC66U 802.11ac Dual-Band Wireless-AC1750 Gigabit Router is the initial wireless router from Asus to encouragement the new 802.11ac Wi-Fi typical . Other than that it's primarily the same as the Asus RT-N66U router .

That said, the RT-AC66U offers really swift Wi-Fi on the 5GHz magnitude band, both with Wireless-N customers and AC clients. In fact it's the fastest of the couple of 802.11ac routers now existing on the market. The router moreover has really great operation and its USB ports give more than only the encouragement for outmost storage and printers.

Like the RT-N66U, the RT-AC66U meets its overthrow on the 2.4GHz band, where its opening was shut to awful for a router of its tier. Its Web interface, whilst fun to use, could moreover use a few improvement.

If you're seeking for a top-notch 802.11ac-ready router and many of your Wi-Fi hardware gadgets encouragement the 5GHz band, at its lane cost of about $190 the RT-AC66U would make an glorious choice. Otherwise, you may wish to wait for for improved firmware, and examine out our list of stream Top 5 routers , particularly the Netgear R6300 .

Design and ease of use
The RT-AC66U looks precisely the same as the RT-N66U with a smooth surrounding that more resembles a valuables box than a networking device, even though it's still evidently a router due to the detachable outmost antennas adhering up from its back.

The router is adjustable in conditions of placement: it may be mounted on the wall, put prosaic on a surface, or, when joined with its detachable base, stay in a semivertical position. In any of these positions, the router looks great and rugged, hinting that it's a hard-core networking device.

On the back, (or on top, depending how you set it up), the RT-AC66U has 4 LAN ports for connected customers and one WAN dock to link up to an Internet source, such as a broadband modem. All of these ports are Gigabit Ethernet, meaning you'll moreover be able to obtain a swift connected network. In add-on to working as a router, the RT-AC66AU may be used as an access indicate or a media bridge, (you can select amid these purposes around its Web interface), and when it's not working as a router, the WAN dock can moreover be used as other LAN port.

Near these ports are the reset button, two USB 2.0 ports, the power button, a minuscule power port, and the Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) button, that starts a 2-minute window in that other WPS-enabled customers can come in the wireless network. That's a lot of buttons and ports, but things are distributed well, so it's reduction cluttered than you would imagine.

On the front, the router has an form of LED lights that uncover the statuses of the ports on the back, the connection to the Internet, the USB ports, and the wireless networks.

The router comes with a CD of setup program that walks you even though every singular step, so surroundings up the router should be really easy for home users. In fact, you'll probably wish to jump over this CD wholly and use the router's Web interface is to setup process, by indicating a connected computer's browser to 192.168.1.1, that is the router's default IP address. The initial time you go there, the interface will acknowledge you with a Web-based sorceress with stairs identical to those of the desktop setup software. Using this wizard, you can moreover rapidly select to use the RT-AC66U as a router, an access indicate (if you already have a non-wireless router and wish to increase Wi-Fi to your network), or as a media overpass (in box you wish to link up other Ethernet-ready gadgets to an existing Wi-Fi network.)

No matter how you wish to use the RT-AC66U, you're doubtful to run in to problems. While it's not the easiest router to set up, if you have a few thought about computers, you'll probably obtain it up and running in only about 10 minutes.

Features
Like all other 802.11ac routers, the Asus RT-AC66U is primarily a loyal dual-band N900 Wireless-N router -- one that concurrently offers up to 450Mbps Wireless-N typical on any of the two 2.4GHz and 5GHz magnitude bands. On tip of that, it moreover supports the ultimate 802.11ac typical , that is only existing on the 5GHz band. This means in any case of what sort of Wi-Fi customers you have at home, the RT-AC66U will encouragement them all, and when you obtain 802.11ac clients, the router will encouragement them, too. In other words, the RT-AC66U offers all the RT-N66U does, in addition to 802.11ac.

Apart from the two principal Wi-Fi networks, one for any band, the new router moreover offers up to 6 guest Wi-Fi networks, 3 for any band. To spin these networks on (if for a few reason you need all of them), you'll must be use the router's Web interface, that is well-organized, responsive, and pretty simple. At the same time, we found that the router's Web interface could still use a few improvement, in conditions of both features and clarity.

There are 3 leading tools of the interface that you access from the left segment of the page. The tip segment is the Setup wizard, that you can use to rerun the initial setup process; the center is for General items; and the bottom is the Advanced Settings.

General offers a Network Map for observation now connected devices, inclusive those connected to the router around the USB ports. You can click on one of the connected gadgets to correlate with it. For example, you can rapidly inhibit a Wi-Fi customer or set up a network storage underline of an outmost hard drive. For the many segment this functions out really well, but infrequently we found that the router took a long time to record a connected device. This means there could be more connected gadgets than those displayed on the map.

Also in the General area are other nifty features such as a Parental Control feature, a Traffic Manager, and administration of the router's USB ports. The Parental Control underline is really easy to set up; you can rapidly increase a device to the managed list and rapidly collect time slots when these gadgets can access the Internet. Unfortunately, you can't improver the limitation beyond having or not having access to the Internet. For example, you can't manage access to specific Web sites.