Linksys WRT350N Wireless-N Gigabit Router with Storage Link

Linksys busted out a new pre-N wireless router today, the WRT350N Wireless-N Gigabit Router with Storage Link. They're claiming wireless throughput speeds of up to 12 times 802.11g with this thing (your mileage can, and almost certainly will, vary), but if you're pushing high-def video around the house you'll take all the bandwidth you can get, right? To sweeten the deal, the WRT350N also includes a wired Gigabit switch (which is still somewhat rare in a consumer-grade router) and a USB port that'll let you turn any external USB mass storage drive into a plug-and-play Network Attached Storage device. Looks like they're shipping this thing now (or at least very soon) with a street price of $120.

Update: Whoops, we knew that price sounded too good to be true. The actual MSRP is $249.

Update 2: Geez, you wouldn't think that pricing on a router would be this hard to nail down. Now the word from Linksys is that the WRT350N will set you back only $229. Stay tuned for more price corrections as we receive them.

[Matt O @ Oct 12th 2006 12:35AM]

this is awesome, i have my second netgear router right now, i have a rangemax, and ive really had it with its reliability its really a crapshoot on whether it works or not... i guess im gonna get a linksys next, and put one of those 1.5 tb maxtors on it..thats what im talking bout

[xaeth @ Oct 12th 2006 12:36AM]

thats awesome...

[Jody @ Oct 12th 2006 12:44AM]

How do you spell ugly? L-I-N-K-S-Y-S. Someone needs some bad industrial design.

-Jody-

[Keaton @ Oct 12th 2006 12:57AM]

Its so ugly is cool duh!!!
lol... Just kidding!
Maybe it is a little less so when the attennas are up instead of sideways or if it is standing up. It still has quite an impressive feature set considering the price of $120.00. Who cares how it looks, It can do just about anything. I bet somebody will figure out how to hack it like previous LINKSYS routers... Then it really could do anything... It will be on my list of stuff I want but can't afford for sure....

[Keaton @ Oct 12th 2006 1:04AM]

Oh ya one more thing... the "read" link goes to the wrong place... it goes to the LINKSYS WRT300N router.... Get it right Engadget!!! lol

http://www.soggycowdesigns.com

[Josh Odell @ Oct 12th 2006 1:13AM]

wireless n sounds like its gonna be pretty freaking sweet, but i wouldnt buy any pre-n stuff. until they finalize the standard things are subject to change and it is possible that some pre-n stuff won't be compatible with actual n stuff when it comes out.

[Logical_thinker @ Oct 12th 2006 1:22AM]

Linksys really needs to hire a designer since all their products look like crap.
I love the stuff they make, but gosh.....who designs these stuff?

[Twist @ Oct 12th 2006 1:29AM]

Here is a link to the correct LinkSys page

http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Promotion_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1154659473565&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper

[JoeeD @ Oct 12th 2006 1:43AM]

Who cares what it looks like. Its a piece of networking gear, not exactly meant to be displayed in your living room.

This product looks awesome. The real kicker is the included gigabit ethernet ports. The only product Ive seen that includes WiFi and gigabit is a netgear router geared towards gamers. With the emergence of HTPCs and iTV, I think most people are going to have to upgrade their current setup.

[Oddmanout @ Oct 12th 2006 3:23AM]

Nice price if it lives up to the hype. I'd be curious how advanced the Storage Link interface is (permissions/security/web hosting/Remote Access and such...).

But at this point, since it's still PRE-n, I'd be much more comfortable if it was firmware upgradeable.

And by that I mean IT *and* all the cards (pci/cf/pccard) you will have to purchase to get your equipment talking through it...

[Carlton Bale @ Oct 12th 2006 11:07AM]

"I'd be much more comfortable if it was firmware upgradeable."

I don't know of any router that is not firmware upgradeable. I'm guessing you mean upgradeable to the 802.11N final spec. It probably is, but we won't know until the spec if final and products have time to implement it.

This router will most likely be able to run third-party Linux firmware (such as http://www.dd-wrt.com ). The Linksys WRT300N can. The feature possibilities with the WRT350N's external storage feature should be interesting.

[enno @ Oct 12th 2006 4:43AM]

now if it only also had voip... i want voip, 54Wlan, and gigabit...

[Tobbe @ Oct 12th 2006 5:12AM]

Anyone knows what kind of cpu they have in this thing? And how much ram it has?

[DRTigerlilly @ Oct 12th 2006 7:44AM]

I hate Linksys, i just bought the G version

[John Stracke @ Oct 12th 2006 8:45AM]

I wouldn't buy a pre-N device; but maybe this will bring down the street price on their NSLU2, which is just the USB NAS.

[Constantine @ Oct 12th 2006 9:01AM]

Storage Link is the most appealing reason for upgrading to this unit. I haven't decided how to go about setting up the storage with this router though, there are so many options for NAS these days it can be confusing.

[Kamisamanou Burgess @ Oct 12th 2006 12:28PM]

I hope it runs on linux.

[LittleBlackBox @ Oct 12th 2006 6:35PM]

I wonder how long it will be before we see it running OpenWRT (linux)... then, it could become the router for all geekdome.

[Gadget Extremest @ Oct 12th 2006 7:47PM]

It has been rumored that this thing will run DD-WRT, just a litte bit of time will prove that true of false.

[eric @ Oct 13th 2006 12:44AM]

The WRV-200, which has been out for five months, still lacks stable firmware (drops VPN connections, can't have VPN+WEP2 WiFi simultaneously, dies randomly, doesn't recover from power failure gracefully, etc. I would be highly suspect of any early-life Linksys product as a result.

[TheGuyNextDoor @ Oct 13th 2006 3:05AM]

Not bad. Not bad at all.

I've been used to Netgear equipment and, lightning surge damage aside, I've never had any problems. I've had some poor experience with Linksys reliability in the past, but I'm willing to let bygones be bygones if their new products are up to the job. Unless Netgear surpass them again, or a newcomer takes my favour.

[Eric Fetty @ Oct 13th 2006 9:55AM]

This is what I've been waiting for only the price is a little steep. Will wait until it comes down.

[Jgrizzle @ Oct 16th 2006 2:56PM]

I have the 300n, according to the linksys software I get speeds around 230mbps. plenty fast for 2 machines walking through Orgimmer in WoW. Where as my G wireless dropped alot, and was pretty much crappy. Everyone says that the internet is never that fast, but what ever it is, N is way better, Not to mention I get an Internet connection across the yard in my garage.

but................

I'll be returning it and getting the 350, then return that after the standard is settled.

Alleria rocks !!

[charlie Willis @ Oct 17th 2006 11:37AM]

I paid only $129.99 at best buy and it works great...

[Sherwin @ Oct 22nd 2006 11:35PM]

Best buy has the WRT350N for 179.99 this week and the WRT300N has gone down to 129.99. I'll be trying to wrt350n shortly

[CC @ Oct 23rd 2006 7:39PM]

I got the WRT350N the other day at Best Buy. Well there is a problem with it when it comes to hooking up a USB drive. First just for you guys that are getting it or want to hook a drive to it the drive must be formated FAT 32. We hooked up a NTSF drive and we could read the files but not write to it. So with that we reformated the drive to FAT 32. Well here is were the problem begins. When we tryed to put the files back on the drive through the router some files would copy to it and others wouldn't. Come to find out it was being very particular to certain files with certain extentions. Like .ini or .txt or other hidden files such as the ones that are made in Media player for keeping the album art. We called linksys and they are working on this problem. So if anybody has any ideas please by all means let me know.

[CC @ Oct 27th 2006 4:00PM]

Just wanted to let everybody know that Linksys has a fix to my file problem not copying back to the drive. Well after four days and finally getting to upper tech support they came out with a new firmware version that fixes the problem. The firmware number that fixes it is 1.03.0 . I don't know how you will get it though. They emailed it to me and as of right now it is still not listed on there web site. But hopefully this will help you to get tech support to belive you and find you the file. So let me repeat there is a new firmware for the WRT350N that fixes the file extension problem with copying files to usb hardrives. It is Firmware version 1.03.0

[fltbosn @ Oct 29th 2006 4:42AM]

I have the same modem and problem as you CC. I've emailed linksys and called, but still haven't received the updated firmware.

[jcX @ Oct 29th 2006 4:55AM]

Yeah, Im having this Trouble too.. I Dont like FAT32 file system but got no choice coz this router is so choosy. I am still having problem copying my files to it even it is now formatted with FAT32.. Im not very happy with this, my recent D-LINK DIR-655 is much more better, giving full and excellent signal to all wireless G receiver in my house but this linksys cant do the same. Not to mention the DIR-655 has more complete and more professional web-based interface. So sad I have to give up on this one coz of this Network Attached Storage Feature on this linksys that doesnt work very well.

I contacted linksys twice and spoke to some people who doesnt know what to say. One said to wait for the his Senior Tech for 2 mins but ended forever and one said to call me back.. Im so very disappointed to Linksys..

I hope I'll get a hold on this firmware very soon.. And I hope they'll include NTFS to work as well..

[Ike @ Nov 6th 2006 8:01AM]

I also have been dealing with Linksys since I bought this router on friday and they keep giving me different answers every time. If possible can some one email this update.

[superbad @ Oct 29th 2006 10:15PM]

I've had this for a few days. I'm having the same problems with not being able to copy files to the NAS, and the wireless is very unstable, crashing several times a day so far. It's a POS, rushed to market. If new firmware doesn't fix the bugs shortly, it's going back and I'll just get a NAS enclosure.

[Jimmeer @ Nov 1st 2006 3:23PM]

I am thinking of buying WRT350N but need to know if I will be able to turn off its radio part if I want to. For security reasons, I will like to turn wireless part off when I am away from home for long periods of time but still keep wired connections active.
I know some routers will allow you to disable wireless through 192.168.1.1. Is it the same for this router. (guy at best buy said I couldn't so now I am confused)
thanks

[JoeyH @ Nov 9th 2006 12:37PM]

Yes you can disable wireless all together in the Wireless mode drop-down box.

[Rick_Havoc @ Nov 15th 2006 1:13PM]

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?sku=A0763509&cs=19&c=us&l=en

Dell is selling for $198.95 Sony Sucks