With your old generation WRT160N in home, will you upgrade to new generation Linksys E1500 N300 router?

The main reason people upgrade their wireless router is to get a better performance including higher speed, better range coverage and more features without loosing what already get with your current router. The table below shows features comparison between the Linksys WRT160N and Linksys E1500 N300 routers.

Wireless Standards

Linksys WRT160N is based on the draft 802.11n wireless standard, while the new generation of Linksys E1500 N300 router is based on the new 802.11n standards delivering the high speeds up to 300Mbps. The IEEE approved the draft 802.11n standards to become new version of wireless 802.11n standards with some options addition. No major changes actually but some options.

Antenna

Both routers include built-in Internal MIMO antenna technology but the number of antennas is different. Linksys WRT160N supports 2x internal antennas but Linksys E1500 N300 supports 3x internal MIMO antennas for much better speed and coverage. Unfortunately with internal antennas you cannot upgrade the hi-gain external antenna for better power.

Ethernet Ports

Both routers have the same 4x 10/100Mbps Ethernet LAN ports and one 10/100Mbps Ethernet port. Should you require gigabit Ethernet ports you should consider the high performance Linksys E3200 or the fastest Linksys E4200 routers. If you don’t have computers with gigabit NIC ready why you should require gigabit router, or if mostly your clients connect wirelessly Ethernet is not an issue to consider.

USB Port

In home theater environment, the router with the capability of hosting an external shared storage would be very advantageous for streaming media files from the storage to the Blu-Ray player, XBOX or HDTV. Linksys WRT160N includes one USB port with built-in media server to let you share the storage across the network but Linksys E1500 doesn’t. If you have multiple home theater devices, built-in media server feature is very important for you. If you upgrade to new Linksys E1500 N300 router, you will loose the shared storage with media server capability, unless you upgrade to new Linksys E3200 N600 router.

Guest Network

Guest network is the capability of separating the virtual network for your guest without the need of providing your local network access except the Internet access. All new generation of Linksys E series support the guest network but older generation routers don’t. Upgrading to new Linksys E1500 N300 router will help you protect your local network resources from your guests.

Considering the new router to upgrade your existing one you better read what others opinions about the product, read the customer review in Amazon or else. In Amazon, the responses of the customer about the Linksys WRT160N are not so good; it receives averagely 3.6 out of five stars customer ratings for ease of setup, reliability, ease of use and speed. On the other hand new Linksys E1500 N300 with its Speed-Boost technology receives positive responses from the users. It receives averagely 4.5 out of five stars customer ratings for speed & reliability and ease of setup & range.

If you demand better performance of the router with solid connection and more features, you can upgrade to Linksys E1500 N300 router unless you still require the USB port for shared storage.

Connection Diagram

Like other wireless router as the center of the network, the router connects to either cable of DSL modem to share the internet connection with many computers in home. The diagram can be shown in the above figure where Linksys E1500 N300 router is the center of the network.

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