Asus set to revamp its router line-up by VR-Zone.com
With the mostly disappointing AMD news today, we figured we'd post some more positive news, well, that is if you care at all about routers. Asus is getting ready to revamp its entire router product range and it seems like the company got really fond of its "Black Diamond" series design as we're looking at no less than five new models based on the same overall design. The best news of it all is that Asus is finally ready to launch the RT-N66U dual band router, but the design has changed quite a bit since it was first shown way back at CES in January.
Asus' first router in the Black Diamond series was the RT-N56U, although it has very recently been joined by the RT-N53 which is Asus' second dual band router, although it's a much more basic model with only 2x2 MIMO, no simultaneous dual band and no USB connectivity, although it's about half the price of the RT-N56U and it keeps the Gigabit switch.
Starting at the bottom of the new models we have the RT-N10 LX which is a basic 802.11n single antenna 150Mbps router with a standard 10/100Mbps switch and a mere 4MB of flash and 16MB of RAM. Moving up a step we have the RT-N12 LX which gains 2x2 MIMO support which offers 300Mbps connectivity speeds, but is otherwise near identical in terms of functionality to the RT-N10 LX. Both of these models sit flat and have fixed external antennas unlike the other Black Diamond series routers.
Next up we have the RT-N15U and this model has a pair of PCB antennas and support for 300Mbps MIMO connectivity. It also has a Gigabit switch, a Gigabit WAN port and a single USB port (although some specs we've seen is suggesting it might have two) that supports storage devices and printers. It also sports a built in FTP server and supports UPnP AV. The RT-N15U will likely replace the current RT-N16 over time.
Finally the top of the line model is the highly anticipated RT-N66U which initially was thought to be an Asus R.O.G. branded router, but now that's expected to be the rumoured RT-N76U. The RT-N66U is a simultaneous dual band router with Gigabit speed for the WAN and LAN ports, three detachable antennas that are used for both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands and Wi-Fi speeds of up to 450Mbps on both bands. It also sports two USB 2.0 ports which can be used with storage devices and printers. The router sports a new UI which we sadly don't have a high enough resolution picture of to post, but the general layout and design is similar to that of Asus' UEFI. There's of course support for FTP server, UPnP AV and various other features. The RT-N66U should be based on a 600MHz SoC paired up with 32MB of Flash and 1GB of DDR2 memory if initial specs prove to be correct.
In addition to the new routers, Asus is also launching the USB-N53, a dual band USB dongle with 2x2 MIMO antennas for speeds of up to 300Mbps and it's been designed to go with the Black Diamond series of routers. Asus has started to make some pretty impressive network kit and our only reservation about Asus' Wi-Fi products is the comparatively high price of some of its products, such as the RT-N56U which is still one of the more expensive consumer routers out there. Sadly we don't know what the new models will cost, but we're expecting that the RT-N66U will be even pricier than the RT-N56U.
Asus set to revamp its router line-up
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