Airport Extreme vs. WRT610N

Hi,

I just wanted to get some unbiased views on these 2 routers. Lately my connections been dropping quite frequenty so I figured it's about time to get a new router. I've tried just about everything to try and fix it, thus I've came to the conclusion it's either normal wear and tear or wireless inteference.

Most of my household uses PCs, but my sister is getting a macbook soon and I'm considering an iMac just for fun a bit later on. I know the APE works both ways. But, I think I read an article about the WRT610N being incompatible with macs. That would be a problem, at least for my sister.

So can anyone chime in and give me some thoughts?
Like which one is more stable, better support (firmware), easier to integrate, faster speeds, experience with dual-band, etc. Both are around the same price for me (179.99 vs 169.99 CAD)

Thanks!

 

I have a WRT160n and the range and signal is amazing.610 and 160 are essentailly the same so this should help but i have no experience with APE but i heard its pretty good. I still think its overpriced thow. But my cordless phone interfers with it and i lose connection everytime i get a call =p Brings back Dial Up memorys

 

WRT610N is very much different from WRT160N.

For sure WRT160N operates only in 2.4GHz band, while WRT610N can do both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands in the same time. This affects some N client wireless adapters which can only operate wide 40MHz channel to achieve 270-300Mbps in 5Ghz band, thus these clients can only connected at 130-150Mbps max with WRT160N. Not to mention other differences such as number of antennas and USB ports on WRT610N.

Sorry for not commenting the APE vs. WRT610N.

 

It's alright .

I'd get a single-band router but I figure in the long-run dual-band will help out in terms of interferance and compatibility with other wireless devices.

 

My experiences with the WRT610n are not good, it's by far the worst consumer product i have purchased in a long time. I will save you the running list of problems, but i can say given the chance i would take the chance on any model except this one, and i would personally avoid Linksys like the plague they are...

After waiting months for a Firmware to fix a multitude of issues, the latest firmware just added a bunch of new ones. I currently cannot transfer higher than 1.1MB, on my Gigabit network after the Firmware upgrade, which would be fine if i could find the original firmware to download...

There are literately dozens of issues with this router, and i have no faith that Linksys are up to the job of resolving even half of them. Also remember the USB port is only USB1 and cannot write more than 3MB/s to any external HDD, Installation Software (LELA) is buggy, slow and crash prone, Certain functions in the Web based HTML are not working etc...

 

I was kind of leaning toward the 610n.

Is it like this for most people in general?

 

I have a 610N and have had good luck with it. I didn't bother with the install software and just did it myself. My experience with router install software from all vendors has been pretty poor. Setting up a router is not difficult, just do it yourself.

I find the dual band invaluable. I us the 2.4Ghz band to stream to my xbox 360 and then use the 5.8Ghz band for the internet on the laptops. I use a cord to upload to my server and get sustained writes of over 500Mb/s. It will vary a bit depending on what it is writing. Going upwards of 900 and as low as 300, but still a huge improvement over 100Mb. It is a solid router but you have to set it up correctly. It is a high end router with highend features, you need to have an idea of what you are doing. The one dissapointment is that the USB port cannot be used as a print server.

 

Yeah I figured that's why there were so many poor user reviews. I'm not the most knowledgeable at networking but I'm a pretty fast learner. I'm willing to spend an hour or two setting up the network properly. I'll probably get the 610N and see how it goes. Though I heard the 5ghz range is pretty poor. Is this due the fact that people don't set their adapters to the 5ghz frequency or a flaw of the 5ghz band?

 

AFAIK it's the nature of electromagnetic wave. The higher the freq, the shorter the range becomes, in term of the same amount of power usage. CMIIW.

 

i have the 600n and it's great , great range and signal strength uploaded over 200 gb wirelessly and speed was between 45 and 75mbps , wired had insane speeds !
The 600n is supposed to be better because the antennas . at least that'as what I heard . And get the latest firmware , always helps , ddwrt is another option , for even more options