Budget router delivers on performance

This picture has been used for representational purpose

The E5600 router is a new better-looking, budget router from Linksys with no visible antennas, making it easy to clean. The black and blue colour scheme is carried to the indicator lights and while the design is good, there is no way to wall mount it, which is sad.

The E5600 is a dual-band AC1200 router which means it can transfer at speeds up to 1.2Gbps. This is particularly useful for streaming and online gaming if you have a fast internet connection. The range of the router is around 1,000 sq feet and can handle more than 10 devices at a time. The range on 2.5Ghz is decent. I could use it both inside my house and right outside the doorstep. The 5Ghz range though faster was available only within a small range.

I didn't see much difference in regular use between the 2.5 and 5Ghz, as for most critical operations I usually use a physical gigabit ethernet connections. The E5600 has four of them, which I appreciated, some budget routers tend to shed physical connections.

Setting up this router was a breeze, once I added my Internet details it just took off. The software to configure everything is super easy to understand. It also supports WPS based connections that don't require any configurations on the device side. The software also has parental controls and guest access which is a plus.

I didn't face any problems extending my in-house router range by connecting this via LAN in the internet port. However, the E5600 doesn't support repeater mode. The router also doesn't support opensource software like DDWRT or Tomato right now, but considering it is relatively new, we can wait and watch.

If you are looking to get a better router at a price that doesn't hurt, the Linksys E5600 has a lot more feature than most budget routers out there. At the same time, it also looks good doing it.

Price: Rs 4,999