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Asus RT-N16 review

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Verdict

Packed with features and amazingly easy to use – only short-range performance lets it down

Review Date: 14 Sep 2009

Reviewed By: Jonathan Bray

Price when reviewed: £78 (£90 inc VAT)

Overall Rating

Features & Design
5 stars out of 6

Value for Money
4 stars out of 6

Performance
5 stars out of 6

PCPRO Recommended

Routers are a set-and-forget type of product. Once installed, they're usually forgotten about until they break, or the time comes for changing broadband suppliers. But when you do go back to change something after months (or years) of neglect, most of the routers we've tested don't exactly make it simple. The Asus RT-N16 is one of the easiest to use we've ever come across.

Log into the RT-N16's web-based admin pages and you're presented with a simple diagram laying out the topography of your home network. Click an item and you're presented with related details and settings in a panel to the right hand side, while using a series of buttons on the left you can manage the important stuff such as media server features, plus Asus' AiDisk and EzQoS features.

The latter pair of features are particularly worthy of note. EzQoS allows you to adjust the amount of bandwidth allocated to certain traffic types visually. Click the Gaming icon and it will prioritise that traffic, and you can add internet applications, media streaming and AiDisk to the mix too. AiDisk is Asus' own dynamic DNS feature, which lets users who don't have a static IP access attached storage and networked PCs. The best thing about this is that you can set everything up without having to go to an external website.

Which brings us onto the Asus' other key feature: a pair of USB sockets on the rear allow you to attach up to two external drives, turning the RT-N16 into a basic NAS device, complete with UPnP media server and read/write access restrictions you can apply on a per-folder basis. You can also use one of the sockets to share a printer over your home network.

It's clear a lot of thought has gone into its software design (apart from some rather odd translations), so it's all the more heartening to discover that the RT-N16 isn't lacking in other areas. Not only does this router boast four Gigabit Ethernet sockets to go with its WAN port, but also draft-n for quick wireless performance.

And, in our tests, it performed well. Although it was significantly slower at close range than the Trendnet TEW-633GR (the fastest single-band router we've tested), it edged in front at long range with a transfer rate 15% quicker in our long distance test.

The reasonable price means that just about the only thing we can find fault with, other than the short range performance, is the bulky design, blinding white colour scheme and rather outré blue lights. But if you don't mind that, and you need an easy-to-use router for your cable broadband connection that's packed with features, this is one of the best around.

Author: Jonathan Bray

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Comments

User comments

You say - only short range performance lets it down. How about a lack of a modem too? I was rather excited about this product until I read of this fundamental weakness.

By paulfurleymellor on 17 Sep 2009

And where are they on sale?

Where in the UK can you buy this. I blew up my old trusty KCorp this morning and need to get hold of this asap.

The awful white colour nothwithstanding this would be perfect for me.

By octaglider on 25 Nov 2009

AVAILABILITY!!

This would also be perfect for - and I'll install it behind a bookcase, so the appearance is irrelevant.

- but I can't find one!

Several internet searches have only come back with international deliveries and they are either in a language I can't read, out of stock or "we don't do international deliveries yet".

If PC PRO got a £90 (with VAT) price when they reviewed it, who was the supplier?

By stew_ozone on 16 Dec 2009

AVAILABILITY!!

By stew_ozone on 16 Dec 2009

AVAILABILITY!!

By stew_ozone on 16 Dec 2009

Be VERY wary. I bought one and....

I bought one of these from overseas because of the PCPro review which seemed to be supported elsewhere.

I have posted the following on various forums with little success so far. What I have discovered is that the 'wrong IP setting' message (see below) and broken connection runs right across the Asus range:

I have a D-Link 320T ADSL modem which ran into my KCorp 108 G router very happily. Reliable and as fast as I'm likely to get (6.5Mbps).

However, I bought an Asus RT-N16 router because of its facilities, N specification and reviews. I've set up a variety of modems, routers and modem/routers and though it should all be plain sailing especially given the excellent web interface of the RT-N16.

The RT-N16 offers various settings including Dynamic IP, PPPoE, Static IP and a few others. The only settings to work are 'Dynamic' (which was the way my old router worked) and the 'Static IP' setting. It also tells me that "You have set the wrong dynamic or static IP address" when I have it set to 'Dynamic IP'. (?!?!)

However my connection 'speed' has dropped to a steady 0.5Mbps with either of these settings. If I switch back to my old router the speed immediately increases back up to 6.5Mbps

Either there's something I'm missing OR the firmware is seriously faulty.

Is anyone able to offer any pointers? Should I just return the router, especially when I see the problems people seem to experience with Asus routers.

By octaglider on 21 Dec 2009

Half-bridge PPPoA U@K DSL connection

@octaglider

The D-Link 320T has a strange implementation of a half-bridge mode called ZipB, this does cause a number of routers problems as it passes the WAN IP as the Gateway. You can only use static IP if your WAN IP is static, surprised it worked at all rather than at slow speed.

It may be worth upgrading your 320T firmware, D-Link did improve it, but watch out there may be lots of differrent versions with same name.

By mstombs on 10 Jan 2010

This device does not have any Upnp Media Server

I own this RT-16 thingy and it doesnt come with a Upnp Server.
Did you ever test the stuff you get?!
What i've said is proof, and can be found here:
http://bit.ly/59aruQ

By fnord on 6 Feb 2010

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