The good: The
stylish and compact Asus RT-N56U Dual-Band Gigabit Wireless-N Router offers
stellar 5Ghz performance, long range, and an intuitive Web interface. Its
storage feature is well designed; the router is comparatively fast; and it
offers a convenient way to access data over the Internet.
The bad: The Asus RT-N56U's Web interface takes a long
time to apply changes and the router doesn't support the new three-stream
450Mbps wireless speed.
The bottom line: The Asus
RT-N56U is arguably one of the best true dual-band 300Mbps home routers on the
market.
The
compact and well-designed RT-N56U Dual-Band Gigabit Wireless-N Router is a
major step up from its bulky and buggy predecessor, the RT-N16 . It offers the fastest 5Ghz speed to date and very good
overall performance for both wireless and storage features.
The
only two minor blemishes we find in the RT-56U are its Web interface, which,
though intuitive and responsive, takes a long time to apply changes; and its
lack of support for the new three-stream 450Mbps wireless standard, which
competitor Cisco Linksys E4200 offers.
To make up for this, the Asus is much cheaper than the
Cisco at around $130. If you're looking for a well-rounded true dual-band
router that also offers decent built-in network storage features for your home,
look no further than the Asus RT-56U.
Design and
ease of use
Having previously reviewed the bulky and subpar Asus RT-N16, we found the new
RT-56U a big pleasant surprise. It's one of the most stylish routers we've seen
and is about two-thirds of the size of the also-stylish Linksys E4200. The
RT-56U, however, is squarish and from the top it looks very much like a shiny
black marble tile. It's also very thin.
The router is not designed to be wall-mountable but it
comes with a detachable base to work in a vertical position. It can also be
placed on its bottom, like all routers.
Despite the new compact physical size, the RT-56U packs a
heavy punch. On the back, it has four Gigabit LAN ports (for wired devices) and
one WAN port (to connect to an Internet source such as a broadband modem). Next
to the ports, there are also two USB ports designed to host printers or network
storage. This is the first router of this ultracompact size to come with two
USB ports. Most compact routers we've reviewed don't have a USB port at all.
Between the USB ports and the LAN ports is a tiny reset button that restores
the router to its default manufacturer settings.
On top, the router comes with an array of tiny blue
lights labeled with the function each displays the status of--the USB port, the
wired network, the two wireless networks (2.4Ghz and 5Ghz), and the power.
It's very easy to get the RT-56U up and running. First,
plug the router in and turn it on. Next, from a computer that's connected to
the router via a network cable, open an Internet browser, such as Firefox. You
will be greeted with a quick Web-based wizard that walks you through a few
simple steps to set up the wireless networks and get connected to the Internet.
In our case, this took less than three minutes. The setup is foolproof and
probably the fastest way to set up a router we've seen--possibly even faster
than the case of Cisco's E and Vale series, which are extremely easy.
After the wizard, you can use the router right away or
stay in its Web interface to further customize its features. Later on you can
log in to this interface again at any time by pointing a browser of a connected
computer to its IP address, which by default is 192.168.1.1.
Features
The RT-56U's Web interface is very similar to that of the RT-N16 but is much
improved in terms of performance and utility. The new router also has more
features. The only nag we had is the fact that the interface takes a long time
to apply changes. It displays a countdown message that goes from 1 to 100
percent at a rate of about 2 or 3 percent per second, meaning almost every change
takes close to a minute.
The interface has a nifty network map that show a
schematic of all the devices connected to its network and USB ports. It also
has a very easy-to-use quality of service (QoS) feature called EzQoS that lets
you quickly prioritize what type of services--gaming, media streaming, VoIP or
Internet applications--that you want the network to prioritize for each
connected device. There's even a comprehensive "Traffic Meter" that
shows the use of the Internet as well as wired and wireless networks in real
time or in the past 24 hours.
The Asus
RT-56U's intuitive Web interface is pleasant to use.
The
router's USB ports support external hard drives formatted in either FAT32 or
NTFS, and its storage feature works very well. In our trial, the router could
handle two bus-powered external hard drives, the Seagate GoFlex Pro and the Western Digital My Passport , at the same time. So without needing too many wires
running around, the router can offer up to 3TB of network storage (with two
1.5Tb external hard drives attached, such as the Seagate GoFlex Ultra-portable)--not
too shabby a number for a device of its size.
Once the hard drive is connected, you can choose to share
its entire existing contents as public (simple share), meaning everyone can
have full access to it; or you can choose to share it with accounts. Choosing
the latter option lets you create multiple user accounts and assign access
privileges, (read only, read/write, no access) for each account to each of the
share folders. We tried all these different settings, via a section called USB
Application within the router's interface, and they worked as intended.