Belkin Acquires Linksys

To those that have had no problems with Belkin, your lucky. Their main fare are their cheap, sub $50 routers at wal-mart and they are the junk of junk. I've been to so many houses that blamed cable for slow speeds, I bypass their belkin pos and presto, speed is back. Then have to explain to them that their cheapy router is to blame. Linksys used to be good, I owned two of them and never had an issue. I got a WNR2000 and have had no issues with it except one firmware version caused it to lock up (1.52). Since then its worked like a champ. Good speeds throughout my house. Of course, the only things on wireless is one laptop, wife's kindle, one smart tv and our phones. So not much wireless use (networked my house after I bought it, every room has at least one cat5, living room has three in different area's).
 
Belkin is keepnig the company separate as they know alot of people will buy Linksys still 'thinking" it is cisco owned and not their own Belkin products.
 
^ Just because it was "Cisco owned" does not mean any products from the Linksys line were good, or Cisco-quality.
Hopefully Belkin will do a better job that Cisco could with this product line and brand name.
 
I am in the minority camp apparently that never had any serious problems with Belkin products. However, I will add that I do not have any personal experience owning a Belkin router. I have used Belkin usb wireless adapters and they have done the job just fine.My sister-in-law has been using one to connect her computer for years now and, while not the fastest, it has worked fine for her needs.

I think part of the problem with a site like this and Belkin products is the audience itself. You are likely not considered the "average consumer" if you are on a site like this. That probably means that you have always pushed the boundaries of technology and the products were likely not designed with those tolerances in mind. Consumers like my sister-in-law use it occasionally to check her email and post to facebook, but she is not interested in Netflix, Hulu and similar high bandwidth requiring services, unlike me who has them all and uses them regularly.

I have had used Belkin products and been quite happy with them. For instance, I used a Belkin usb bluetooth adapter to connect a keyboard and mouse to a livingroom media PC for years. I also still have two Belkin UPS systems in use today. Admittedly, I did have to replace the batteries after a few years, but that would be true for any product and it was easy to change them (and they have a higher capacity).

With all of that said, I still would not consider Belkin first when I was out shopping for networking equipment. I have always preferred DLink equipment for some reason and loved the DIR-625 router. However, I just recently retired that (and a DIR-825) for two ASUS RT-AC66U routers. I am using the ASUS firmware and running one in bridge mode on the 5 GHz network to connect my entertainment center in the living-room. I have not had to reset either one yet and I have had zero issues with streaming HD content. I used to get stuttering caused by caching of content.While it was expensive, I am not regretting the decision to switch over to ASUS at all.
 
For a while for home use I just used some surplus Cisco 1121/1221 AP's lol...But netgear has been really solid for me in the home space - and frankly after working it all day I don't care to futz around with networking stuff at the house. Just want it to plug in and go.
 
I've had a few Belkin pieces of equipment -- all of them were trash.

That having been said, if Belkin keeps the same engineers and designs and procedures at Linksys than FOR NOW I hope we won't see a dip the quality of Linksys gear. The moment there is a slip up though I'll have to find another brand of networking gear to stick with.
 
^ Wait, Linksys had quality gear?
Oh that's right, about a decade ago.
 
Linksys sucks, was good back in the late 90's. Belkin is just buying someone that is at their quality level.

My Asus RT-N16 just died on me after 2.5 years.

Picked up a Netgear, thing has been rock solid so far.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top