Linksys EA8300 Max-Stream AC2200 Tri-Band MU-MIMO Gigabit Router Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

If everyone in your house wants to watch Netflix at the same time, this Linksys router can handle it.

Linksys

You may be saving money off your family’s entertainment bill by using streaming services like Netflix instead of subscribing to cable television, but watching all of those HD video files will demand a fast network. That’s where something like this new Linksys router unveiled today at CES 2017 comes in.

The ridiculously long-named Linksys EA8300 Max-Stream AC2200 TriBand MU-MIMO Gigabit Router (henceforth known as EA8300) takes advantage of faster Wi-Fi standards found in top-of-the-line, tri-band routers without being too expensive. Previous pricey routers such as the Asus RT-AC5300 or the Netgear R8500 are costly while offering little practical advantages over cheaper routers in real-world usage.

The EA8300 is a dual-stream (2×2) router with two 5GHz bands that each cap out at 867 megabits per second and one 2.4GHz band capping out at 400 Mbps. While it’s not the fastest on the market, the router has some of the fastest real-world Wi-Fi speeds that can be beamed to devices like laptops, smartphones and tablets. Plus, that extra 5GHz band means the router can serve up that signal to even more devices with minimal congestion.

Other than that, the new router includes these features:

• Powerful hardware: Quad-core 720Mhz processor, equivalent to a 1.4GHz dual-core processor, 256MB of DDR3 system memory and 256MB of flash memory
• Four high-performance antennas and powerful amplifiers to deliver the best coverage and range
• Advanced beamforming technology for stronger connections to all of your devices
• Airtime fairness: Faster devices can transmit at faster speeds while the slower device will not affect the speed of Wi-Fi networks
• Linksys Smart Connect: automatically selects the best band for the fastest wireless speeds
• Seamless Roaming: When used with Linksys’ Max-Stream Range Extenders, the home network will have seamless signal hand-off
• Linksys Smart Wi-Fi: Remotely manage, monitor and control your Wi-Fi network from anywhere using a phone app

The EA8300 has the usual amount of network and peripheral ports.

Linksys

Linksys says the new EA8300 is easy to use and can be quickly set up in just a few minutes. It’s available this spring with a suggested retail cost of $200 in the US (converting roughly to £165 or AU$275).

Click here to find out what else is happening at CES 2017.