Final Words & Conclusion

Final Words & Conclusion

Next to bringing back a lot of nostalgia for the design alone we have to say this; there is absolutey nothing about the WRT1900AC that can be compared to that old piece of hardware. The WRT1900AC is truly among the most powerful routers available on the web.

That said, with so much power at hand there also comes a rather powerful price-tag, the WRT1900AC as such sits well above the 230 USD marker, and that is a lot of money for a router. Range wise it is excellent, but not better then the latest AC routers from Dlink, and these come at half the price of the WRT1900AC. There is a second comment as well, I like the admin interface, but it does not offer extremely advanced network settings. There should be a novice (default) admin interface, and then one for guru's like we are. I miss out stuff like deny/allow certain IPs on a WAN to local port forward. Ehm, I want to assign how much bandwidth the guest accounts can use up maximum. Or hey, I want to allow only certain external IPs to be forwarded to my FTP server. Right now, I can open the port, but everybody will be able to sniff and connect to it. So in that respect some more options in security features would be nice. 

Performance

Overall wired throughput is really good for both LAN and LAN measurements we topped 930 MB/sec but that's normal for any gigabit router these days. The power consumption can be discussed as far as I am concerned, at 11 to 12 Watts we do think that the WRT1900AC is consuming quite a bit of it, remember these devices are on 24/7/365). If you take into account that you can also use the unit as a NAS with external storage connected to the router, well that does help out in the equation, of course. USB 3.0 / NAS throughput performance is exceptional BTW, even faster then most modern dedicated NAS servers.

WLAN Performance

The WiFi range/strength definitely is good though comparable towards other high-end routers from DLINk and ASUS. We all need to understand that our bandwidth is getting more and more cluttered with WIFI signals these days and everybody simply pushes more through WIFI. You all have a wireless router, everybody has a WIFI smartphone, tablet, media server and a lot of common household peripherals have some sort of WIFI, (anyone checked out the new Samsung washing machines?). These factors combined make the most important denominator, the device that it all connects to is very important in terms of WIFI quality and range. From web browsing, downloading to playing games on your PC, TAB, netbook or laptop... the WRT1900AC obviously will be more than sufficient in terms of bandwidth and reach. It has strong send and receive signal. Obviously choose for 5GHz AC based devices if you like to enjoy the true power of this router.

Concluding

So then, the WRT1900AC is an overall excellent performing router. I would have liked to see a bit more range, but also understand all the rules and regulations the manufacturers get enforced these days. For fast internet browsing over WIFI it's plenty enough though, file-transfers... no problem either. The Firmware GUI is easy to use and setup, and the WRT1900AC all by itself ran flawless. After running this product for a week, we have seen a few stability issues. one morning the PC would not connect to the router over LAN whilst WIFI was working. So please do expect a few firmware updates in the near future. Massive props to Belkin for the ease of installation though, everything is already done for you. You plug it in and it works. Even a unique wireless identification key (WPA2) is supplied for you.

The WRT1900AC probably ends up in the top three of my personal best routers, but you do need to accept the fact that the price tag of roughly 235 USD/EUR is rather steep compared to the competition. This is not just a router though, it is a small low power computer AKA server that takes control over your local network and internet, we can certainly recommend it if you need a strong WIFI range on the 2.4 and 5 GHz channels. Combined with proper AC WIFI NICs and AC enabled devices you'll enjoy very good WIFI performance. LAN wise things just can't get any faster then this. But always keep in mind that even if a router states 1900 Mbit/s, you will always see worse performance as you need to factor in error-correction and the gazillion other WLAN devices in your neighbourhood. The trick is to be stronger then the rest, and the WRTR1900AC manages to do that just fine. Definitely recommended, but it is expensive for a consumer router alright.

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