Hello.
It's Dan Go here for cnet.com and in my work, have been dealing with crazy names and this device right here is no exception.
It's the RT-N66U Dark Knight, double 450 million P per second and router from Asus.
Let's just settle with Dark Knight, it's a good name anyway.
Now the Dark Knight looks great, more like a bar of chocolate or jewelry than a networking device.
But it cannot pretend to be one because you can see here, it has 3 detachable antennae sticking up from the back.
Now on the back, you can see you have 4 LAN ports and 1 WAN port.
All these port are gigabit, meaning you have the fastest wide network with this router.
There's also the WPS button, the reset button, the power button and a tiny power port right here.
Now the router has not one but 2 USB port.
Also, it's USB port offer more function than just a support for an external hard drive or printers.
On the front here you can see the usual array of LED light that show the status of the port on the back and other functions of the router.
Now this is the first N900 router from Asus.
That means, it can work on both the 2.4 gigahertz and 4 gigahertz bands at the same time with expand offering 450 megapixel per second standard.
This is called the 3 by 3 standard.
Now in auto 4, you too take advantage of that higher speed.
The client also have support the 3 by 3 but if they don't, the router also with with all existing clients.
In my testing, it's work great.
Especially in the 5 gigahertz bands.
It also offer very good coverage with long range and very stable signal.
Now the router has common features such as the guest networking feature probably to control, the support for IvP6 and others.
It also have a rather unique feature including a network maps, traffic managers and also a VPN server which allows you to created a virtual private network for remote user to connect home securely.
Now the router is not perfect and I found a few funny thing about it.
For example, you can use the web interface to check for the firmware and update the router to it.
However, even when the router is already updated with the latest firmware, the web interface still say there are newer version out there.
Now that's kind of fun but the only way for you to know when there is actually a new version of firmware out there is to go to Asus website.
The second kind of odd thing about the router is a fact that it come with this base right here.
Now from the looks of the base and the look of the bottom of the router, I will assume that you put them together like this for the router to work in the vertical position.
However, when I tried to do that there's a little bit of plastic sticking out from here staying in the way, making it impossible for them to fit.
So I would think, if I break this piece off, that would work.
Now let's try out.
Voila.
Now it's broken.
So let's see, you're gonna fit now.
And it fit.
I dunno whether or not that's the defect in the mold of maybe Asus want to play a practical joke with us.
But sometimes you have to break it to make it work.
Now those little thing do not mean this is not a good router.
In fact, it's one of the best and nicer router on the market and at $180, it actually cheaper than its peers.
For more information, check out the full review at cnet.com.
My name is Dan Go and this has been the first look at the Dark Knight router from Asus.
