New generation of Linksys E4200 N750 router Vs Asus RT-N56U black diamond – which one meets your need?

Recently I discussed the old generation of Linksys WRT160N Vs new generation of Linksys E1500 N300 router to justify if you need to upgrade your WRT160N to the E1500 series for better performance. Unfortunately you will loose the shared storage capability if you upgrade the router to E1500 series. Should you require to jump from standard wireless network to high performance wireless network, you can consider new Linksys E4200 N750 or Asus RT-N56U N600 routers.

Deciding which one to upgrade your existing WRT160N with one of the two high performance wireless routers between Linksys E4200 N750 and Asus RT-N56U N600 routers, you better have a look at the following comparison table.

Wireless Standard

Both routers are powered by the latest wireless 802.11n standards with simultaneous dual band (2.4GHz and 5GHz) support to double your bandwidth demand. Linksys E4200 N750 is powered by the wireless N750 technology delivering the maximum speed up to 450Mbps in 5GHz band and up to 300Mbps in 2.4GHz band. The Asus RT-N56U N600 supports N600 technology delivering the maximum speeds up to 300Mbps each band. Normally you can use the 2.4GHz band for normal networking tasks including internet surfing, sharing the documents, email and printing. While you can connect using 5GHz band (for wireless clients with 5GHz band support) for time-sensitive applications including streaming HD video, fast responsive gaming and other voice applications.

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Remember, on the real world you will never reach those maximum wireless speeds due to many environmental factors. Those are ideal, theoretical physical speeds.

Antenna

For covering longer distance coverage and providing solid signal strength, Linksys E4200 N750 includes 6x internal antennas with MIMO technology while Asus RT-N56U includes Al Radar technology which intelligently adapts beam patters to local conditions for optimized and reliable wireless coverage.

Ethernet Ports

With your existing WRT160N router with fast Ethernet ports (10/100Mbps), you can upgrade the router with the one that supports gigabit Ethernet ports. Both Linksys E4200 and Asus RT-N56U include gigabit Ethernet ports in their LAN (4x) and WAN (1x) interfaces. You can take advantage of connecting the gigabit ports to any computers with gigabit ports ready for maximum data rate transfer. Some DOCIS 3.0 cable modems support gigabit Ethernet port such as Surfboard SB6120 you can connect to the routers for maximum data throughput eliminating the bottleneck between the router and the modem.

USB Port

In high performance wireless environment to support your home theater devices including the Blu-Ray player, XBOX console and HDTV, the capability of sharing the attached storage across the network is very essential. Both routers support UPnP media server to let you stream any multimedia files stored in your attached storage to the home theater devices.  Any streaming media including Apple TV, Roku XDS, Boxee box can easily work with your multimedia files.

Linksys E4200 N750 supports one USB port to let you connect the storage to the router and shared across the network. Unfortunately you cannot host a USB printer to the router and share it to the network. But Linksys E series include Cisco Connect Software to help you manage any network-printer to share across the network.

Asus RT-N56U includes two USB ports to let you host both storage and the printer at the same time and share them across the network. Having two USB ports is very advantageous, you can work with your printer and at the same time your family streams the multimedia stored in the storage to the HDTV.

Guest Network

In some cases you require the network segregation to separate your network and your guests. Guest network allows you create separate network to provide your guests internet access without granting your local network resources. Linksys E4200 N750 supports guest network but Asus RT-N56U doesn’t.

Customer Ratings

Reading any reviews from others who experience with the products is very essential before deciding to purchase the product. In Amazon, Linksys E4200 receives averagely 4 out of five star customer ratings for ease of use, range and reliability but 3 out five star customer ratings for unreliable. On the other hand the Asus RT-N56U receives positive reviews so far, averagely 4.4 out of five star customer ratings for ease of use, speed and reliability, lots of features, and range.

Connection Diagram

The above diagram shows a high performance wireless network with Asus RT-N56U as the center of the network which hosting both storage and printer at the same time. Multi-port wireless bridge can be used to connect multiple home theater devices (such as Buffalo Wireless-N Dual Band Ethernet Converter WLI-TX4-AG300N) is used to let them connect to the network wirelessly.

See also:

• Linksys E series wireless routers – in some situations
• Any types of Linksys wireless adapters
• Best simultaneous dual band wireless routers
• Best dual band wireless routers