Linksys EA8300

VERDICT

Great value and easy to use, but you can get better performance at this price

- David Ludlow

WIRELES SMESH SYSTEMS may be the big thing many companies are trying to push, but a regular router upgrade can still be a good choice. That’s particularly true if your existing router is out of date, or if your home isn’t too big and so won’t benefit from a mesh system. There’s no need to spend a fortune, either: the Linksys EA8300 costs just £140, yet it has some of the latest Wi-Fi technology built in.

The EA8300 is a tri-band 802.11ac AC2200 router. You get one 2.4GHz network, rated up to 400Mbit/s, and two 5GHz networks rated up to 867Mbit/s each. MU-MIMO is supported, which means you get better and dedicated throughput to individual devices. More devices are shipping with MU-MIMO now and it will, in future, be the default technology.

While there are routers with faster headline speeds, the combination of networks and bands should mean that the EA8300 can keep up with the best, providing plenty of bandwidth for even the busiest of homes.

Setting the router up is easy. Just flip up its antennas, plug in the power, hook up the Ethernet WAN port and connect any wired devices you have to the four Gigabit Ethernet ports, and you’re good to go.

Linksys ships the router with a secure wireless network, with the password printed in the quick-start guide. The setup wizard takes you through changing the network name and passwords, so you can choose something secure but easier to remember.