Home networking gear has been making some leaps in speed and sophistication since its introduction. These leaps have made wireless in the home more usable and configurable. Much of the work on this side of the product (making things easier to configure and use) has been behind the scenes, but this work has pushed wireless technology further into our homes. Now the big ticket item is the new 802.11ac wireless standard. However there is still a huge market for 802.11n wireless products with dual concurrent bands (2.4GHz and 5GHz). Right now these wireless products are what you are going to see in the market and what consumers are interested in simply because of their prevalence. So with that in mind we are taking about an 802.11n wireless router from Asus, the RT-N66U Dark Knight Wireless router.
The Box and Goodies -The box that the tech comes in is something that many ignore as it is boring and… well does not really tell you how the product performs. On the other hand the packaging can tell you a lot about what you should expect and what a manufacturer wants you to think about the product in question. With that in mind what is Asus trying to tell us about the RT-N66U?
The RT-N66U is billed as one of Asus’ top end wireless products. While it is not an 802.11ac wireless product it is still a top end product inside the 802.11n line up. The front of the box tells us a few things about the N66U that Asus thinks it very important. The wireless specs let you know the upper edge of the wireless spectrum you can expect. The 450Mbps x2 relates to the two bands (2.4Ghz and 5Ghz) that you can run 802.11n wireless over.
Asus has also thrown in two USB ports, the potential for 8 SSIDs, Service Set Identifiers or “network name” to many, in short terms this means that you can run multiple wireless networks (up to 8) independent of each other. Lastly Asus is throwing in parental controls for you to protect younger internet users from… you know the bad things on the internet.
The back of the box is full of the “hard sell”. Here Asus (or more exactly Asus marketing) wants you to know that the RT-N66U can handle all of your network traffic as well as provide you with features and services that you want.
Inside the box you find everything that you need to get things going. You get the RT-N66U a power adapter, three antenna (we will tell you why this is good in a bit), a network cable, a few manuals and a utilities DVD. There is also a stand to allow you to, yeah you guess it, stand the RT-N66U in a vertical position.
