Linksys wrt610n Router Review

By BrianX | July 22nd, 2009

Linksys used to be the trusted name in routers. Not anymore. The Linksys WRT610N Dual N-Band wireless router is a supposedly top of the line model. I walked into a Future Shop (like a Best Buy) store and they had an entire store display right in the aisle. I noticed that about half the boxes on the display had a large sticker on them that read “opened box discount.” That was the first red flag that I missed. If so many people are returning them, it must be garbage, right?

I then spoke to a sales rep who tried to convince me to buy the d-link at $119 rather than the most expensive version of the Linksys WRT610N  router at $205. He poorly answered every question I had about the routers so I decided not to listen to him and go with Linksys - the most expensive one. That was red flag warning number two that I ignored.

I’m tech savvy and yet when I got home, I spent an hour and half trying to get the router to work. It never did. I called their “24 hour tech support” which was 45 minutes of my life which I will never get back. Not only was the guy completely useless, he kept apologizing for the trouble I was having and then tried to upsell me on a $10 service plan. Are you kidding me?!!?

Linksys by Cisco has tech support in the Philippines and let me assure you that he didn’t know anything. I told him right from the start that I kept getting “Error 321″ and simply wanted to know how to correct it. After 45 minutes of time wasted, he never even came close to telling me what it meant.

I should have Googled terms like “Linksys Sucks” and “Beware of Linksys” before making this purchase but I had trusted them in the past. I Googled those terms now and found tons of websites pointing out how crappy they are.

I will never buy Linksys products again. All I got from dealing with their tech support was the first headache I’ve had in months. I’m serious.

Don’t let the cool, sleek-looking appearance fool you. This was a complete waste of time, effort, frustration, and more. Don’t do that to yourself. Buy some other brand.

The entire experience left me so angry and with such a bad headache that I decided to not wait until the next issue’s publication date of August 1st but rather put this article up right away so more unsuspecting, innocent technology buyers learn that if you have any problems, dealing with this company may be a disaster for you too.