Asus RT-N56U Dual-Band Gigabit Wireless-N Router

Pros: The pretty blue lights?

Cons: VERY POOR BROKEN ENGRISH web interface. Appears to have been written by some Korean that hardly spoke any English. Constant disconnects and network errors. Bad hardware design with wires coming out of side of the unit causing tip over.

Summary: I had my mind set on the Cisco E4200 after much research for me it was between this Asus and the Cisco but I decided to go with the Cisco since it is a more trusted networking brand. Long story short I got to Frys and saw this box and picked up then asked the sales guy where the E4200s were because there were none on the shelf he then told me I'm sure we have some let me check but honestly you're holding the best router we carry (the Asus RT-N56U). He proceeded to attempt convince me (always suspect) that they never get any returns of the Asus and that the Cisco E4200 has a lot of problems and gets returned a lot.

Well after getting the Asus home first it had issues connecting to my network and had to be rebooted several times just to connect then once it did I kept getting timeouts on my iMacs browser every once in awhile. Videos or would hang and or load slowly or erratically while streaming. Over the next few days I constantly had issues with my Android phone and the router as well. I would get constant network error issues and timeouts.

I called tech support and after spending like 30 minutes on hold and being passed to every low level tech moron at Asus I finally got their level 3 tech and he suggest that I switch to WPA personal encryption instead of WPA 2 which is BS because the router I was using prior to this was a WNDR3700 and it was set to WPA2 and I never had these issues. After making his suggested changes just 10 minutes later I started having the same issues on the Android phone of constant disconnects and network errors.

The hardware design is extremely suspect and about as elegant as the web interface. The black diamond look is ok I guess although it's extremely reflective and is actually kind of distracting and to in your face. The way the unit is meant to stand upright on the included stand means you have all of your ethernet cables sticking out of the side of the thing which causes it to want to turn and topple over.

To top it all off the web interface for this router is a total joke. It seems like it was written by some Korean guy that barely speaks any English and then wasn't even proof read by anyone at Asus before shipping out the door.

This is just a really poorly designed product overall and I'm extremely miffed and curious as to why it seems to get good reviews from "pro sites" on the internet. Trust me and save yourself some time and headache and go with another choice. I traded this Asus in for the E4200 I originally intended to get and so far (8 hours) of uptime it's very fast and is working flawlessly.

I should have known better than to take any advice from anyone working in a store. I follow a general rule that I research everything before I make a purchase and I never take into account what anyone working for a retailer tells me.