A Look at the Linksys Wrt54g Wireless Router - Computers - Mobile Computing

The Linksys wrt54g wireless router is one of the most highly recommended wireless routers available right now. Unfortunately, not everything lives up to the hype. Word of mouth usually kills the marketability of a crummy product, but a strong marketing campaign or just high expectations on the part of the buyers can lead to the sort of hype that tricks you into buying those crummy products and being the one to start that negative word of mouth.

So what we're doing today is asking ourselves, and other reviewers around the web, whether or not the Linskys wrt54g wireless router lives up to the hype.

The first thing we notice about the Linksys wrt54g is that it's pretty easy to set up. This is pretty much a standard feature of any router these days, but hey, it's not out of the running yet at this point. Just plug it in and install it and you're ready to go.

Where the wrt54g shines is really in the performance. For something that's priced to move and aimed at the buyer who just wants a basic, easy-to-use, at home router, the wrt54g exceeds expectations. Typically, with the cheaper routers, you get what you pay for, but the wrt54g is potent enough to support a small business or a large house.

It's not really designed for larger networks per se, but it can handle multiple laptops just fine without any noticeable slowdown, so we were impressed. A quick search of the message boards likewise indicates similar performance for other users. It may give you a bit of lag if you really want to push it to its full capacity, but for any but the most strenuous use, it really shines.

The security isn't bad, either. It's passed several independent tests by white hat hackers, as it should. Linksys is one of the biggest router companies in the world, so they can certainly afford to hire a few white hats of their own to test their products out, and if they don't pass, they probably don't enter mass production.

So, our final score for the product? We give it somewhere in the A range. We'd say it scores an A + if you're doing basic home use, and A - if you're trying to run a slightly larger network on it. We'd say that two or three users is the perfect size network for this wireless internet router.

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