| NETGEAR R6100 | Linksys EA6300 | |
|---|---|---|
 |
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| WiFi Performance | AC1200 WiFi (300 + 867 Mbps) | AC1200 WiFi (300 + 867 Mbps) |
| WiFi Band | 2.4GHz & 5GHz | 2.4GHz & 5GHz |
| Ethernet Ports | 4 Fast Ethernet LAN port 1 Fast Ethernet WAN port |
4 Gigabit LAN port 1 Gigabit WAN port |
| USB Ports | 1 USB 2.0 port | 1 USB 3.0 port |
| Security | WPA/WPA2 – PSK and WEP | WEP WPA Personal WPA Enterprise WPA2 Personal WPA2 Enterprise WPA2/WPA Mixed Personal WPA2/WPA Mixed Enterprise |
| Antennas | Internal | Five Galtronics bent-metal internal antennas: three for the 5 GHz and two for the 2.4 GHz |
| Firewall Features | Network Address Translation (NAT) Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) DOS Prevention |
Advanced Network Protection (WPA/WPA2 encryption and SPI firewall) |
| MSRP | $99.99 | $99.99 |
Netgear R6100 is a dual band router that supports AC1200 standard. The nominal data rates for the 2.4GHz and 5GHz band are 300 and 867 Mbps respectively. The router comes with DoS attack prevention, as well as NAT and SPI support in the firewall. It has 1 10/100M WAN port and 4 10/100M LAN ports. It comes with USB 2.0 for network accessible storage. The wireless adapter is not included.
Netgear routers are known for their sleek and compact design and when you look at R6100, you would mistake it for one of the costlier models by Netgear. As compared to R6300, the previous model, the size is almost half but the features are no different – no option for wall mounting, internal antenna and vertical placement. You will find the network ports on the back of the router. It is an easy Plug and Play design which most users would like. The setup of R6100 is pretty easy and straightforward. The router can be connected using WPS or you can type the password and the browser would be opened for you automatically to start the Setup Wizard. The default login and password is ‘admin’ and you will be prompted to change both of these.
The performance of the R6100 has been a cause of many complaints. This is mostly because of lack of Gigabit Ethernet support. For the 5GHz band, the speeds of Wi-Fi for both 802.11AC and 802.11N are the same. For short distances, about 15 feet, the speed is around 89Mbps and when this distance is increased to 100 feet, the speed drops to 80Mbps. For the 2.4GHz band, short range speed is around 60Mbps and long range is around 22Mbps. The design and setup of the router might be good but when it comes to performance, it falls flat. The R6100 is a good choice for those users whose home broadband is not superfast.
