Cisco Factory Refurbished Linksys E900 Wireless-N300 Router

The only difference between this router and others for 2-3x more money is dual-band support (which is only useful for connections over 40Mb), QoS services (for more than 2-3 simultaneous users), some never used parent controls and access using Cicso's new (and limited) Cloud, as well as a gigabit switch (as this one supports only 100Mb although wireless connections can be faster). But, your Internet connection is likely the bottle neck at no more than 10-25Mb (for cable) or 7-15Mb (for DSL). So, why does anyone need more than 100Mb on their switch except to back up to another computer (I back up to SD)? You only need 3-5Mb for video (3.6 for native Netflix or 1.5Mb with Silverlight). I get over 20Mb downloads AND uploads with this wireless router (and a DOCSIS 3.0 modem). Well built and fair support, this switch is less than half the cost of anything comparable. And, the E900 supports the latest WPA2 encryption handling. This is THE best buy in wireless routers and what most people should buy. Highly recommended.

I must say I was skeptical about purchasing a router at such a low price point and factory refurbished as well. Rest assured this device is solid and comes packaged like it was directly from Cisco... it even had a Cat5-E cable and CD. The quality of the device was superb without a single scratch on it.

The reason I purchased this router is that I have 16 routers in my house one EA4500 Linksys EA4500 App-Enabled N900 Dual-Band Wireless-N Router with Gigabit and USB and 15 WRT54G Cisco-Linksys WRT54GL Wireless-G Broadband Router routers. Some may think this is overkill but I have an old house with plaster / chicken wire walls which creates a faraday cage in each room. Needless to say RF signals have a hard time getting through my home. So I was looking for a cheap upgrade that would get me wireless N @ 2.4 & 5GHz. I was evaluating an RE1000 but it required a high signal strength from another router in order to function and would not hardwire and act as a bridge... and it was twice the cost per repeater.

Setup was a breeze, simply connecting an ethernet cable to port 1 on the router and setting the router to bridge mode worked like a CHARM. I was able to complete setup in under five minutes. I don't use the Cisco connect software as I am old school and prefer the web interface. Although I am sure it is just as easy.

I am very happy with the performance of this router, while it doesn't have the range or throughput of my EA4500 it does a great job and outperforms my WRT's So much so that I could reduce my total number of routers by half. Throughput wise I was able to stream full HD video (1920 x 1080) from my media center and have a constant connection to the internet at speeds of 50mbps (tested using speedtest.net)

I have always trusted the linksys name brand for my home network and love the additional features like DHCP Reservation, DDNS, and router naming. I can now browse and administer these devices by name like or

For the price you cannot beat this router. Especially as a repeater for other linksys routers.

Thanks Cisco for making a great product.

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I've been wanting to get an 802.11n router since I began doing more home networking. Even my XBOX was telling me that my b/g router was holding me back and might impact my ability to stream higher-definition content.

I started looking at n routers vs. b/g and I was sold by the speed increase (up to 300 vs 54) as well as the increase in range (4x).

There was definitely quality put in to the refurb and packaging process of this unit; wen I opened it up, I would have had no idea this wasn't new. It was clean, packed well, and worked fine right out of the box. Setup with my existing Verizon router was no problem at all once I found the instructions online on how to do a lan-to-lan connection. For the refurb cost vs. new, it was a no-brainer to buy this one. I updated firmware to the latest rev just to be sure I was up-to-date. I did not install the software off of the included CD.

-1 star because the range is really no better than my old b/g router. My signal still fades significantly in my kitchen which is about 30 feet from my router location. I did a little reading online and I've seen some reports of this for the lower-end linksys routers. At 4x the range for an n router vs. b/g, I expected to be anywhere in my house or yard and have a good signal. I'm going to do some relocating to see if there are line-of-sight or obstruction issues that are impacting the range.

-1 star because speed isn't what I expected either. I didn't expect any increase in internet speed because I know I'm limited by my 25/25 Verizon FiOS package, but I expected it to maintain higher numbers when connecting device-to-router. My phone comes in at about 65, my tablet around 100, and when I take a look at the connection speed with my laptop it's about 150 Mbps. I know that the n routers will drop speed when other devices are identified on the channel; I'm probably in a congested area. I also know that certain devices can't take advantage of the full throughput of the n routers. So to be fair, my expectations were probably too high around the speed increase I'd see.

In terms of value for the price, I'm completely pleased; overall, I might have been expecting more than what an 802.11n router can realistically deliver.

EDIT: 1/28/2013 This router started to get flaky after a few days of use. Ended up having to do a reset on it, then I started having connection issues. I already picked up a dual-band n router locally (cost about 5X as much) and it's a significant step up in performance. My tablet even connects to it at the 5 GHz frequency, which is completely unused in my neighborhood (no interference).

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Bought it refurbished for $20. Very clean and new.

Flashed to DD-WRT to make it a Client Bridge/Repeater. Works like a charm and provides internet to several devices that do not have wireless capabilities as well increases signal upstairs. WIFI speed is great and allows me to stream from my PLEX Server with no buffering problems. This product is highly recommended if you like to go for simple affordable solutions with great performance. Fast shipping and delivery.

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I've ordered two of these routers and have been using them for the past 2 weeks with absolutely no problems at all. They looked brand new and each came with a Cat5e cable, power cord, and CD. I immediately installed Tomato onto them and they've been running without issue.

Pros:

-Broadcom 300MHz CPU/8MB Flash/32MB RAM/Linux-based, you can easily flash 3rd party firmware on these routers

-Super fast, Running N-Only in Greenfield under Tomato firmware I've been getting ~90Mbps in 20MHz and about ~96Mbps in 40MHz in a 100Mbps environment

-Stable, Have not had the need to restart the router manually, even if I tinker with settings, and even under high load

-Nice design, This is subjective, but I think it looks very sleek

Cons:

-No 5GHz wifi, If you live somewhere crowded, the 5GHz band is useful, although I had no need for it.

-No GbE, If you want/need Gigabit ethernet, this will be a deal breaker as the switch is only 100BASE-TX.

-No USB

-Plasticness, It feels very light, and this becomes a problem if all the Ethernet ports are used because the router will tip backwards

-Cannot be stood up vertically, This is useful in some situations but whatever

-It isn't free

Overall:

If you want 802.11n on your 100Mbps network without decimating your wallet, this is definitely the way to go.