In Brief

The rousing sales of so-called MIMO, or "Pre-N" routers attest to their simply superlative performance. Even prices three or four times those of regular 802.11g routers and dire warnings of non-compatibility with the final 802.11n standard seem to have no effect on their popularity. The plain truth is that the extended-range antenna technology in these routers makes them irresistable to users plaqued by dead spots and poor performance in even the smallest houses. The MIMO routers we've tested typically reach more than 100 ft. through walls, floor and other obstructions before performance begins to seriously degrade, three times as far as with regular 802.11g routers.

The Linksys Wireless-G Broadband Router with SRX is one of the newer models, based on the same Airgo "True MIMO" chipset and reference design as the Belkin Pre-N Router we reviewed previously. The Belkin was the first MIMO router to hit the market, and we were curious to see if the Linksys performed even better. The answer is a qualified yes. The SRX has perceptibly better reliability, compatibility and performance, but the Belkin has significantly better setup, and a much lower price tag (about $50-$60 below Linksys).

In Depth

The overriding attractions of the Linksys compared to other MIMO routers are rock-solid performance and top speed. Maybe it's the strange antenna arrangement on top of the unit, but we got noticeably better reception (signal strength) with the Linksys than with the Belkin in difficult-to-reach areas of our house. And better reception translates directly to faster throughput, which was about 10 to 15 percent higher with the Linksys at all distances. We also experienced very few momentary dropouts, which seem to happen with all Wi-Fi routers due to atmospheric disturbances or interference from other 2.4GHz devices. And we didn't have to reboot the router once during our test period, except to change parameters.

One reason for the differences as compared to other MIMO routers from D-Link and Netgear may be that the Linksys can automatically switch channels to avoid interference from other networks or devices, whereas competing products from D-Link and Netgear are fixed on channel 6 due to channel-bonding requirements in their high-speed modes. That said, all the MIMO routers we've tested gave us great whole-house coverage, they differ only in speed and features, and not by much.

Features-wise, the Linksys has all the usual firewall and routing capabilities, including an SPI NAT firewall, MAC address filtering and virtual server support. It also supports WPA encryption and Radius authentication servers, for enterprise-level security. However, like the Belkin, it does not have WDS (wireless distribution system) or wireless repeater support for extending range with a second access point. This is not a critical omission for a product that will likely cover your whole house anyway. More significant is the lack of a parental control feature, as offered with the Belkin Pre-N. There are access controls, but they are limited to time of day and specific machines. You can't block particular Web sites.

To get the most out of the router, you'll want to buy the matching PC Card for any portables. However, there is no USB adapter as yet for desktop machines; Linksys promises one by summer. But even if you don't buy the (expensive) PC Card, you can expect much better range and performance out of your regular 802.11g adapters with the SRX than with a plain 802.11g router (we got five times better performance at 50 ft.). This is good news for those who can't upgrade all their devices (such as Mac owners with internal AirPort cards). It's also worth noting that the Belkin and Linksys products are interoperable in their enhanced modes, since they are based on the same chipset. So you can use Belkin adapters with the Linksys SRX and vice versa.

The bottom line is that the Linksys SRX router is the top-performing MIMO router we've tested thus far. We'd like to see Linksys improve the setup process and drop the price, but it's hard to argue with the excellent speed and range. Should you worry about the fact that it's a pre-standard product? Not if you want to kill the dead spots in your house.