Being an extremely ‘connected’ family one of the key things in the house is to be able to connect to the internet in every room, at all times, with multiple devices. To give you a basic rundown of our current equipment we tend to use, often simultaneously:
2 laptops
1 desktop PC
2 mobiles
1 ipod touch
1 wireless printer
and this can often increase with a tablet, another laptop and any visitor who wishes to hook into our wifi network on their mobile, so when I say I need a router and modem to be able to handle all this, I’m pretty strict on my requirements!
Linksys X2000 - Opening the box
Linksys were kind enough to allow me to review their new Linksys X2000 and I knew I would be putting it to strenuous testing.
On opening the box, the modem/router is smart and sleek. Some modems are really quite ugly and since I have mine in my lounge, like a lot of technology its important how it looks – I’d rather not have a heavy brick-type object as a sorry excuse for a modem.
Cisco Quick Connect gets you through setup easily and painlessly
Set up was simplicity itself. Linksys supply a Cisco Connect CD and it takes about 5 minutes with easy to follow setup screens. My only quibble with this is that a lot of laptops these days don’t have CD/DVD drives – including mine! I can’t remember the last time I had to use a CD, but thankfully I had an external drive I could plug-in to install the setup disk. However, it would be useful if there were alternate options for the quick setup, a USB key or SD card. You can download the set up software from the Linksys website, but thats not always a good option if you can’t get onto the internet in the first place.
Another big issue that a lot of people don’t realise when going to buy a router is that some routers can only be used for DSL (eg the BT phone line) or cable (eg Virgin Media) and don’t have the necessary facility for both. The good thing about the X2000 is that they can work for either cable modem or DSL so you don’t have to worry when you take it out the box that you won’t be able to connect.
As I mentioned I have a lot of ‘connected’ equipment in most rooms in the house and the worst thing that can happen is that my modem doesn’t reach parts of the house – manufacturers have often used the excuse that a signal won’t go ‘through the wall’ or ‘upstairs’ when trying to disguise or defend their poor signal reach. Others make you buy booster aerials or booster routers. More recently, some put ugly aerials on their boxes. Linksys however use MIMO technology, which means no matter where in the house you are, you’ll get a great signal. And this was true – I had no problem getting a great connection wherever I was in the house – whether Little Monster was watching Peppa or Mickey on i-Tunes in the kitchen or I was in bed blogging on my laptop.
My final test of robustness was streaming and downloading. We watch a lot of streaming TV and download quite a bit too and one of the most annoying things is when a TV show buffers because the internet connection is being used by another device. Thankfully, the X2000 easily manages multimedia streaming without interference from other connected devices.
The advanced settings also offers guest access password control – allowing guests and friends to connect to your internet connection using their own password, allowing you to control what they can access, as well as an integrated firewall and WPA2 security.
Most importantly for us, there is also parental controls available which means you can control exactly what your kids can and can’t view online, as well as the ability to limit the amount of time spent online.
Here’s a quick rundown of the Linksys X2000 features:
- All-in-one device – functions as a wireless ADSL2+ modem router or a wireless router
- Wireless-N router with wireless transfer speeds up to 300 Mbps
- Reliable range with MIMO antenna technology
- Three Ethernet ports to connect wired devices
The Linksys X2000 costs £84.99 and is available to buy at Homebase, Argos, Amazon and Maplin.
http://home.cisco.com/en-eu/
Its rather pretty for a modem!
Now for the really good bit.
Thanks to the lovely people at Linksys, I have a Linksys X2000 to giveaway to one of my readers
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WINNER CHOSEN
All the entries were put into a spreadsheet from 1-198. The winner was picked using www.random.org.
The winner will have 14 days to claim their prize otherwise I will pick again.
And the winner is
David Sweet
Congratulations! I will be getting in touch with David directly
Thank you to everyone who entered. Please check my Giveaway page for some more competitions
———————————–
To Enter, simply subscribe to this blog in the email box on the right hand side of the page, or via Google Friends Connect and let me know you’ve done it below. If you’ve already subscribed, let me know that too
Bonus Entries
– Follow me on twitter here Follow @humanb3an
and tweet the following
RT @humanb3an I want to get connected with a Linksys X2000 wireless router at www.gadgetmum.co.uk Enter http://wp.me/p1QmbO-6f
– Become a fan of my Facebook page (click the Facebook button below the ‘follow me on the web’ on the right-hand side of the page)
That’s three possible entries. Please comment below to let me know what you’ve done.
UPDATE – SECOND CHANCE TO WIN
Linksys have kindly offered a second X2000 for my facebook followers. Just like, share and comment on the giveaway post for another chance to win (ends Nov 20)
http://www.facebook.com/GadgetMum
Terms and Conditions:
1. The giveaway ends November 27th, 2011
2. You must subscribe to enter (and activate the subscription to enter if using email subscription)
3. UK only
4. The winner will be notified by email and/or on twitter or facebook. The winner will have 2 weeks in which to claim the prize, after which if no-one has claimed I will choose another winner
5. Automated entries are not included.
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My PC and Laptop are both old enough to still have CD/DVD Drives lol Same goes for my trusty (Yet slightly annoying) Belkin Router !! Would love one of these as an upgrade for the poor thing, It’s 5 years old and would really benefit from a new Router! Our Xbox often runs from our Wireless, and it’s very tedious when I have to keep resetting the connection with it not being very strong!
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