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Western Digital. Links is back baby. They got acquired by Belin about 9
months ago and it only took them this long to say okay look the team that
worked on the original WRT 54G and the
54GL was like okay look we want to go back to that. We want to make that
thing, but we want to make it like better and modern because there's still
people using that thing and it's only wireless G for crying out loud. It's not
like I mean, who even has any wireless G clients left anymore? So, this, my
friends, is the updated one. This is the granddaddy of home wireless routers. And
to be clear, guys, when I say granddaddy, I mean expensive granddaddy.
It's going to come in at around $300, but it has technology to spare. So, it's
got a 1.2 GHz CPU. It has what there
some enterprisegrade features on it. So to go along with the detachable
antennas, yes, we've gone away from that whole Cisco link integrated antennas.
For whatever reason, they did that. So you have detachable antennas, so you can
put aftermarket ones on and it also has antenna diversity, which allows them to
auto sense which ones are best in terms of connectivity and range for a
particular client and use the three that are going to work best. In their Labs,
they've seen up to 30% improvements. Now, in terms of raw spec, we've got
four gigabit Ethernet ports for LAN, and then an additional one for WAN, an ESA
port, which is a very unique addition, one USB 3 port, one USB 2 port, a
cooling fan. Remember, there's a 1.2 GHz CPU inside, and in addition to all that,
the the bloody thing's going to weigh
5B. 5 lb. So while it's expensive, it is
also going to have that same team or a lot of the same team that worked on the
original worked on this and they have made the decision those same people who
made that decision in the first place to keep things open. So if you don't like
the firmware that Lynxys is running, okay? So like you can use like you know
uh the stock firmware, cloud firmware or you can configure it manually, they
don't care anymore or the level of not caring goes beyond that you can install
whatever firmware you want whether it's you know open WRT or DD-WRT or tomato or
whatever those guys are going to be fully able to develop for this router.
Although to be clear I was expecting this router to be the most impressive
thing in the booth. you know, it's going to be like5 when they ship it and it's
like got four antennas on it and stuff, but this ended up being the most impressive thing in the booth. Like, is
this is this an homage to South Park? Like the episode where they they go and
they turn the internet back on because it's absolutely fantastic. That's how
iconic the WRT 54G was is even in that
South Park episode to turn the entire internet on and off, it appeared to all
run off of a single one of those routers. And I I hope it's a reference.
If it's not, then it's still fantastic. Guys, don't miss any of our coverage
here from CES 2014. Our trip to the show was powered by ncx.com, your source for
great technology, selection, and service. You can tell they're our sponsor because they're right here on
the mic flag. We were also sponsored here by Corsair Memory and Western
Digital. Those guys are great. Without them, we wouldn't have been able to be
here bringing you any of this fantastic content.