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.
Value -Value is another very subjective topic. What is expensive to some might be a deal to others. You can look at this topic in multiple ways. One is raw price and the other is what you get for the money. Each is accurate and both are correct ways to look at price/value. We tend to look at features, performance and real-property when we discuss value. However, we also take into account the raw cash cost of the item. The Asus RT-N66U still sells for $150 on most online retail sites. This is a pretty high price for an 802.11n router when you consider you can get an 802.11ac router for only $15 more. However, when you look at some of the extra features that you get Asus makes up some of the difference between the performance levels in the two. They are not able to completely bridge the gap, but it is at least something.
Conclusion -So what do we think about Asus’ RT-N66U? To be honest it is a good performing device with some solid software inside. We do have some concerns about what looks like cold solder joints, but even with that you should be able to get a couple of years use out of one. For feature sets Asus certainly gives you a ton of features that are actually of use in the real world. The design of the internal hardware shows that Asus understands the market and what is required to build a high-performance router. The inclusion of the extra shielding and heatsink should keep things humming along nicely. Now for the down side: the price is much higher than it should be for the speed you can expect. There routers out there that are dual-band and 802.11ac that are not that much more expensive. This is going to put a dent in the sales of the RT-N66U. To wrap things up: the Asus RT-N66U is a solid product that is, unfortunately, priced higher than it should be.
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