Linksys - AC1200 Dual-Band WiFi 5 Router - Black

Out of the box, connected it to my modem, and using the Quick Start Guide, I linked the router to my modem. After the flashing light went solid, the SSID was populated, and I entered the W-Fi Password from the sticker on the Guide. My browser opened up by itself, and there was like a "wizard" that popped up, where I could change the SSID to a unique name, and change the password. all done, then I got the “Your router was not successfully setup” message in the browser. 2 hours of following the suggestions on how to remedy this, I went into online chat, who answered very quickly. I was told to do the steps I had followed online (reset router, unplug caples, rtc). Nothing worked, and the rep sent me a transcript of our chat, with links to fixes. THEY WERE THE EXACT SAME LINKS I'D BEEN TO BEFORE I WENT TO CHAT. SIX hours later, I decided to both, stick a pin into the reset hole, while simultaneously holding the w-fi protected setup button. I refreshed the router setup page (192.168.1.1), and I was finally able to complete the information I had initially entered. I *believe* that's what got me going, as I had followed the instructions step-by-step, DOZENS OF TIMES. If the simultaneous pressing of the restart and setup buttons were mentioned, I didn't see it, or I just got lucky. In any event I was FINALLY able to complete access the WEB version of the router's "control center" as I had read that the default password for the Setup Page was "admin." You can control the router from a remote location, using the Linksys Smart Wi-Fi page. I'm not even sure, or care at this point. Some good news: I get BLAZING SPEEDS wirelessly- over 80 megs downstream. on my new laptop (of course, I don't need THAT much speed, but I guess gamers would). The router itself won't give you that speed, your modem does, just to be clear. It has 2 channels, 2.4Ghz & 5 Ghz. The "1200" after the AC (as in all AC routers) means the SUM total of the bandwidth of all the channels, 1200 Mbps=1.2 Gigabytes. You may want to do some research on this, as sales people I spoke to, clearly didn't know what the numbers meant, but, "you'll need it," while suggesting a higher end model. Now that I'm setup, I'm happy, but would only suggest this to someone with the caveats in mind. It's a known issue in the Linksys community forums. Buyer Beware.

in December 2018, Xfinity decided I no longer needed the ability to switch from G/N to B/G/N (and prior to that, every time they sent an update to their modem/router, it would break the b network so I'd have to switch back and forth to get it working again) and I have a device that works on a B network only. Yay. So I had to find a wireless router that would actually work for B devices. Set it up relatively quickly with no issues in December when it came in. Was able to connect to it with my device. Fast forward to the end of January 2019. I had to move the router to another electrical outlet, so I unplugged from the router, moved it about 4 feet, and plugged in again. Thought everything was working fine, because my computer was plugged in through the LinkSys and was great. A week later, I realized my B device was not connecting. Go to troubleshoot, failure. Wired worked, but wireless did not. Was set to pass through, and not assign IP addresses, so I tried to do a factory reset. The button did absolutely nothing. The device was stuck in a boot loop. (Fried firmware) Finally starting chatting with Tech Support. Spent 3 hours with them before they accepted defeat and let me RMA it. Ok. fine. Fast forward again to the beginning of March 2019. Noticed the B device wasn't syncing again. This time, I was actually able to get into the configuration screen for the laptop, but I just could not enable the wifi antenna again. Tried doing the factory reset again. Apparently that burnt out the firmware and It's been stuck in a boot loop ever since. I paid way too much for this thing for two to die in a span of less than 3 months, and I refuse to spend another 3 hours with support to get another crappy router. Found a cheaper router (different brand) to try on Amazon. At least if the new one breaks, I won't have spent so much money on it. Oh yeah, I had to pay the shipping to return the broken router, they sent a mailing label, but no postage included. I guess I should count myself lucky they sent me the new one in advance (although I had to give them a credit card number so that they could bill me if I didn't return the defective one.)

Purchased this based on the decent reviews it had been getting and several different lists that ranked it as one of the best router options in its category currently on the market. Not sure if I got a lemon or not, but it would only give me a portion of my wireless speed (Ethernet was fine at around 100mbps (I'm only suppose to get about 75mbps), but wireless would only get up to around 27-30+mbps, even sitting right in front of the router). Mbps dropped the further I moved from the router, with no evidence of beam forming. Tried different settings and trouble shooting techniques from various sources to no avail. Returned the router after a few days and picked up a Netgear with similar specs as this one for about the same price. The Netgear was able to consistently get 70mbps over the 2.4G wireless connection and over 90mbps on the 5G wireless connection, with no trouble shooting necessary, multiple devices wirelessly connected to the router and at various distances from the router. I originally thought the Linksys was being impacted by others who live close by that are on the 2G bandwidth, but clearly that is not the case since the Netgear worked perfectly on both 2G and 5G connections (In case you're curious, I purchased a Netgear CM600). Seems that there is something wrong with the smart wifi features on this Linksys; buyer beware, especially if you intend to use high-speed internet service and/or need wireless coverage outside of the immediate room where your router is.

The range of this router is spotty. Even in the same room 5 feet away, the beam forwarding does not appear to have a stable connection. If one of us is looking at or loading a graphic intensive page, the other person's page simply stops loading. Although I will say once a connection is established when streaming a show with commercials, there is no longer buffering during commercial breaks when using 5 Ghz. We have 5 devices on the network and have each device set to different bandwidths; one of the devices is in sleep mode 98% of the time,there is frequently active use of 2 devices at the same time. Our wifi phones which worked great all over our 3000 sq ft adobe home and outside on the old Actiontec wireless N router, now can't hold a clear, stable connection if more then 30 ft away from the router set on wireless N range of 2.4 GHZ, and it is worse using 5 GHZ. Also, regularly, our devices indicate we have internet when there is indeed a problem... the quickest solution is to turn wifi on the device off and back on to establish a connection. It is as if stuck in sleep mode. The last negative thing I have to say is I did not realize the impact the lights being on the back of the unit would have on the ease of diagnosing issues - you cannot at a glance see where the connection is failing (back to the issue of a strong connection showing on the device but no internet). Having bemoaned all those issues, the support line was truly helpful in setup and returning the first router which overheated to the point of being unable to handle. I was attempting to 'future-proof' my router, but made a poor choice. Perhaps the issue is with CL or between the router and modem which are side-by-side, but that has not been established, and CL service would have nothing to do with the range of the router. As other reviews stated, the LED lights on the back are so bright they serve as night lights, but you can turn them off from Smartwifi access if you desire. I thought about giving this 2 stars, but at least it works in some fashion most of the time, it's just not close to perfect. We've had this router close to 2 months now.

I read up on a number of dual-band gigabit routers and this is the one that met my needs at a reasonable price point. Previously having an 8+ year old Belkin draft N router, this one exceeded my expectations. It is solid. I live in a small apartment, so significant range was not that important to me. Having said that, it seems to have decent range, though I would expect for larger houses, may become an issue. It seems to be reliable thus far. I have not had to restart the router since purchase and setup. My old router definitely had to be restarted on occasion. Fast. Using the 5ghz frequency is a dream, especially in a heavily student populated apartment complex. Most signals are still on the 2.4ghz frequency, so the 5ghz is nice and clean. The downside is that not everything has the capability of connecting to the 5ghz frequency, but my Galaxy Note 4 and HP Touchpad both do. As for speaking fast, my apartment complex is just recently upgraded to gigabit Wi-Fi, which I was not able to utilize until obtaining this router. Depending on the server location, I can get up to 450 gigabits per second consistently on my Galaxy Note 4 on the 5ghz signal. Being used to just 25-40Gbps, this is amazing. On the low end of the spectrum, I get 150-250Gbps, which is nothing to scoff at. Upload speeds are consistently above 100Gbps. Now, these results are primarily the ability/speed of my internet service provider, which is a local one SpartanNet, so others may not necessarily get these speeds. However, in combination with this router, accessing internet and download/upload speeds are fantastic. Setup - very easy, especially compared to past experiences with routers. Surprisingly easy. I definitely recommend updating firmware to avoid any potential issues. Changes/Security - Has nice features like providing a Guest Wifi one, where you don't have to risk your password and network security Access - the SmartWi-Fi app capabilities, although not necessary are super-cool. It is nice that you can access and manage your Wi-Fi from anywhere on your mobile device. Bottom line: I definitely recommend this solid router. Paid $95 w/ tax.

I bought after quite a bit of research on what would satisfy my needs as well as not break the bank. I was looking for a router with good range, good speed, ability to attach a USB drive and the ability to manage the router remotely. I also needed a router that would allow for entry of custom DNS servers. There are many products that fit this and I was excited about the Linksys AC1200+ (EA6350). I work in IT and have a Master's degree so I wasn't hesitant in doing many of the configurations myself. I began having problems almost immediately. The setup was fairly straightforward. One thing I noticed almost immediately was that any device on my 2.4ghz band was extremely slow. I updated the firmware without and issues hoping this would correct the issue. Unfortunately it did not. I have about 25 devices in total on my network. The speed of the 5ghz devices were all right in line with my ISP, showing that the router didn't add much if any overhead to the connection. I attempted to configure the router to work with OpenDNS but when putting the DNS settings on the local network the settings were ignored. Putting them on the internet side of the router did the trick but this is not the desired setup. Lastly I had an issue with a laptop that would no longer connect to VPN via a wireless connection. Plugging it into the router fixed this but again this was not the desired setup. I spent several days on the phone with Linksys support but nothing that was tried resolved the issue. Rebooting, re-flashing firmware, restoring to factory defaults, none of it seemed to change anything. Ultimately I returned the product and bought a Linksys WRT1200AC. This device has some really great features but given the number of issues I had I have to believe there was something actually wrong with the device I had. When performing the same steps in the nearly identical GUI of the WRT1200AC i had no issues at all. I could have easily rated this higher if I had a working device or easily rated it lower if this is persistent among all the EA6350.

I purchased the EA6350 to replace a Linksys E2500 router that was struck by lighting. This router was recommended by the associate at Best Buy. Has a great range and perfect amount of ports on back for everything I need for my home network. Was very easy to set up BUT it locked up my wireless printer settings. I ended up hiring a local computer/network technician to come to my home to get the printer unlocked. I was advised that the router actually "overrode" and changed all the wireless printer's IP address and factory settings therefore making it impossible to access. After $175 and 4 1/2 hrs later, the printer was unlocked and working. Linksys needs more documentation in with the product to address some of these possible problems and "how to fix". Other than that I love the router. I would advise anyone who purchases this router and has a wireless printer, to turn the printer off when installing one of these routers. Then install everything to the network BEFORE turning on the wireless printer.

I've had this router for a couple of months now. When it works, its a fine router. That said, I'm not pleased with it. Surprisingly, my previous Linksys wireless router (and entry level one from 6+ years ago) offered a better and more consistent connection that this one has done. With my previous router, I was able to connect my Xbox 360 or PS3 wirelessly... the signal was weak, but it at least connected. With this new router, there are many times where neither the Xbox 360 nor the PS3 will connect... and even if they do connect to the wifi, the connection is so limited that I cannot watch Netflix, VUDU, or access Xbox Live. Also, this router has a USB port, which allows you to connect an external Hard Drive. The drive connects, but I cannot access the files on the drive. When I first connected it, it worked fine... for ONE day! And then, the drive loses it's connection. Another problem with this is the build in Media Server TWONKY--it's a total waste! TWONKY comes built in to the router. It is the only Media Server option available to you on this Linksys device. It is a Media Server that only allows a certain amount (a certain GB amount) of files to be viewable. So, you cannot access ALL of your music of videos if they go over the size allotment. TWONKY also allows you ZERO control over which files are shared. My external hard drive contains a backup of files, pictures, videos, music, etc. TWONKY randomly chooses certain folders to share... but not the ones I want (like my music or video folders). It is not something that I can change. Big mistake, Linksys! Maybe I have a lemon device...