Linksys EA9200 AC3200 Tri-Band Smart Wi-Fi Router: The ideal router for the connected household

Greater Bandwidth

AC-3200 and AC-2400 are the two latest buzzwords in the consumer networking space. If you are unfamiliar with these two terms, we suggest you check out our guide to wireless 802.11ac networking here. There are a lot of differences between the two and it is necessary to understand them first.

But to recap briefly, AC-3200 class routers are typically tri-band routers that broadcast two separate 5GHz networks and a single 2.4GHz network. The total theoretical data transfer rate of 3200Mbps is derived from the maximum 1300Mbps data transfer rate of each 5GHz network and 600Mbps on the 2.4GHz network - 1300Mbps + 1300Mbps + 600Mbps = 3200Mbps. The idea of such routers is to split fast and slow devices between the two independent 5GHz networks. Also, unlike AC-2400 routers, any existing device that supports Wireless-AC will be able to take full advantage of the speed and bandwidth of the AC-3200 routers. Nevertheless, AC-2400 routers are potentially still tops in terms of outright speed since they offer up to 1733Mbps of throughput on their 5GHz band, assuming you have a fully compatible 4x4 client.

Since these two classes are routers represent the zenith of home networking, Linksys has saw fit to follow up on the earlier AC-2400 E8350 router with the new EA9200 Tri-band Smart Wi-Fi router. The previously reviewed E8350 was disappointing in terms of performance and lacked features that should be in a high-end router. Fortunately, Linksys assured us this would not be the case with the EA9200 router as it is classed as one of Linksys' Smart Wi-Fi routers, meaning the full suite of capabilities that Linksys currently offer on their routers.

Design and Features

The first thing that most users would notice about the Linksys EA9200 router is that it only has three antennas, which is unusual considering most AC-3200 routers have six - the Netgear Nighthawk X6 and the ASUS RT-AC3200 both have six antennas. To be sure, the Linksys EA9200 router does have six antennas, just that three of them are hidden internally. According to Linksys, the decision to do so was to give the EA9200 router a less busy appearance, plus they were certain that performance would not be compromised.

Unlike most modern high-end routers, the Linksys EA9200 router is actually quite compact and is designed with a stand so that it sits vertically - wall-mounting is not possible. As a result, it does not take up much desktop real estate, though it sits very tall, at around 30cm including its antennas, so make sure you have headroom. In terms of design, the EA9200 router is rather simplistic. Unlike its rivals ASUS and Netgear, whose routers are highly angular and almost aggressive looking, the Linksys EA9200 router looks much more subdued and conservative The front panel is a bare black with a silver panel down the middle with the Linksys’ logo that lights up when the router is turned on, while the sides and rear panels are highly perforated and vented to let heat escape.

Like its E8350 sibling, the EA9200 router does not have LED status indicators on front, which can be problematic if something goes wrong and you are trying to troubleshoot. There are however LED indicators on the WAN and LAN ports and even for the USB ports, but since these are on the back of the router, their helpfulness is limited.

Behind the router, users can find the usual assortment of ports. There is a single Gigabit WAN port and four Gigabit LAN ports, and also a USB 3.0 port and a USB 2.0 port. And looking to the left (relative to the back of the router), we find two buttons - one for WPS setup and another for turning off Wi-Fi.

Inside, the Linksys EA9200 router is powered by Broadcom’s 5 XStream chipset - the same as Netgear’s Nighthawk X6 router. This chipset consists of a single dual-core Broadcom BCM4709 chip running at 1GHz with 256MB of RAM and three offload Broadcom BCM43602 processors, each dedicated to one of the EA9200’s three Wi-Fi networks. This offload processor handles all wireless processing thus freeing the the host CPU for other applications.

Setting the Linksys EA9200 router up was a breeze as the Smart Wi-Fi user interface is arguably the most user-friendly setup interface around. It offers a good balance of ease of use and control, and offers features such as traffic monitoring, QoS, parental control, cloud storage and more. Clearly, a lot of thought has gone into its design. An example would be Linksys’ QoS management system, which gives users the option to prioritize connections based on devices as opposed to simply just specifying applications and the ports they use. This is both easier and considerably more practical for most users.

The EA9200 router also features Smart Connect, which is a feature that pertains to the router’s dual 5GHz frequency bands. If enabled, the router will use “5GHz band steering”, which means that it will broadcast a single 5GHz SSID, but devices connected to it will actually be split between its two 5GHz bands to spread the load and reduce congestion. This all takes place automatically and the router will assign devices on its own. However, for users who want more control, the EA9200 router can also be setup to broadcast two separate 5GHz SSIDs.

But maybe the coolest thing about the Smart Wi-Fi system is the ability to remotely control and access your router. This can be done in two ways: via the Smart Wi-Fi app that is available for free on both iOS and Android, or online through the Smart Wi-Fi portal. Both will let you remotely control and edit your router settings, change passwords, enable Parental Control, and even access content on external storage devices connected to the router.

Test Setup

Our routine test setup includes a desktop PC, the reviewed router, and a laptop to simulate a wireless home network. The desktop system takes on the role of a host machine, while the router acts as a gateway. And lastly, an external Wireless 802.11ac adapter attached to the notebook is used to fulfill the role of a wireless remote client. The router is locked down in N-only mode for the 2.4GHz band, and 802.11ac for the 5GHz band, mainly to prevent the use of varying 802.11 standards. Typically, a channel bandwidth of 40MHz is selected where applicable, while 80MHz is used for the 5GHz AC band.



We'll be using Netgear's A6200 802.11ac USB adapter for our throughput tests to reduce the number of variables involved. The Netgear A6200 USB adapter supports up to two spatial streams for a maximum data transfer rate of 866Mbps - the maximum for USB adapters currently. Hence, if your system has a more advanced wireless chipset that supports three spatial streams, you can expect even higher speeds.



Here is a graphical representation of our network test setup.

To evaluate, we will be using a mix of synthetic benchmarks and real-world testing. The synthetic benchmark we are using is called Lan Speed Test. As for real-world testing, we will be measuring the routers’ speeds in transferring a 1GB zip file. We will do multiple tests at difference distances to simulate use around a typical home. For the 5GHz band, we also measured how performance is affected if two clients are connected and uploading and downloading data at the same time. Here are the test distances we used and what they represent.

• 2m - Right beside the router.
• 5m - In the adjacent room.
• 13m - In the room opposite.
• 17m - To simulate extreme distances.

Unfortunately, we were having some issues with the Linksys EA9200 router and our USB adapter during benchmarking on the 2.4GHz band, so we will only be presenting results from our 5GHz band testing. We will be attempting to resolve this issue and will update this article with 2.4GHz results when we get them. In the meantime, we will also refrain from rating the EA9200 router, though we will still offer our preliminary conclusion based on our current findings.

**Updated 15/3/15** After further investigation and testing, we determined that our test environment has simply too many 2.4GHz networks being broadcasted to allow us to gain any reliable and meaningful performance figures on the 2.4GHz band. As a result and as we mentioned previously in the our AC1900 router shootout, we will be phasing 2.4GHz testing from our benchmarks. Furthermore, 802.11ac is now being supported by most if not all modern mobile devices. And if your device supports 802.11ac, it makes absolutely no sense to connect to the router via the slower and more congested 2.4GHz band. As such, we'll only be presenting performance from the 5GHz band.

5GHz Performance 

The Linksys EA9200 router’s performance on the 5GHz band was very impressive. Uplink speeds, in particular, was very good as it was consistently the fastest router across all ranges. Downlink speeds were very respectable too and was more than a match for both the ASUS RT-AC87U and Netgear Nighthawk X4, though performance dipped a little at our furthest tested range. In our file transfer test, the Linksys EA9200 router boasted the fastest speeds across 2m, 5m, and 13m. But performance fell quite substantially at 17m. This coincides with our earlier findings with regard to downlink speeds.

The unique selling point of AC-3200 routers is arguably the additional bandwidth offered by the extra 5GHz band. In our performance load test, we enabled Smart Connect and connected two devices to the 5GHz band. And in our test, we found that the router was intelligent enough to automatically assign both devices to separate networks. More importantly, performance suffered to a much smaller degree compared to other routers even with a separate device constantly uploading and downloading data.

Great for crowded households

Although we do not have 2.4GHz results to conclusively rate the Linksys EA9200, our current impression of the router is overwhelmingly positive. From a design perspective, we like that the Linksys EA9200 is not fat and wide like its competitors, and actually takes up little desk place even if it is very tall. We also like the Smart Wi-Fi interface for its ease of use, which makes setup a breeze. Additionally, the ability to access and control your router and its settings remotely is cool, and could be useful in some instances. The added cloud storage functionality is also very handy.

Furthermore, its 5GHz performance was very good. Uplink performance was stellar across all tested ranges and downlink performance was not shabby at all and only faltered at extreme ranges. Smart Connect also proved itself to be intelligent, and the increased bandwidth does come into good use if one has multiple devices taxing the router. This makes the EA9200 router ideal for families who have a lot of wireless devices.

At S$399, one cannot say that the Linksys EA9200 router is a steal, but users will most certainly get what they pay for, and that is great performance, features and ease of use. The Linksys EA9200 will be available from today onwards exclusively at Challenger, and will be available at all our local leading IT stores from end-February.

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