14 DAY TRIAL // Most Wi-Fi routers stick around 300 Mbps when transmitting data, but sometimes they go well beyond that, especially when their maker adds support for the 5 GHz band as well. ASUS' latest product doesn't do that though.
Sure, the router works about twice as well as a normal 2.4 GHz model, but it doesn't tap into a second band to do so.
Instead, ASUS was able to milk the 2.4 GHz alone for all it was worth, bringing the top throughput to 600 Mbps.
The TurboQAM technology is largely responsible for this, as it boosts the speed by up to 33%. So, despite how wireless 802.11n devices are limited to 450 Mbps, the ASUS RT-N18U reaches 600 Mbps.
Another asset is the ASUS AiRadar technology, which combines universal beamforming, high-power amplification and RF tuning for broad coverage (150% better range than normal).
The set of features also enables compatibility with older Wi-Fi standards, even though the top speed will suffer in such situations.
As for the hardware itself, it's driven by an ARM Cortex-A9 processor, with a clock of 800 MHz and backed up by 128 MB of flash memory, plus 256 MB of DR3 RAM.
If you remember, Cortex A9 cores were used in smartphones and tablets up until a couple of years back. Amazing how things have changed by now, having such an arguably powerful chip relegated to bandwidth allocation.
It works though. Even with the memory, a different process wouldn't be able to keep track of up to 300,000 concurrent data sessions.
In layman terms, that means that the ASUS RT-N18U will be able to divide its resources between online games, file sharing and HD video streaming at the same time.
Wi-Fi routers are made for it after all, so that it can be accessed at the same time by a PC, a few smartphones, maybe even a tablet or two on the side, or a smart TV.
Furthermore, ASUS went another step beyond the norm and included range extender and access point modes, for when you already have a router running but could use the extra range of throughput.
A pair of USB ports round up the spec sheet (one USB 2.0, one USB 3.0 for sharing printers and removable storage and the like). Add to that AiCloud (transforms USB-attached storage into a personal cloud server) and you have more than the standard feature set to play with. It's a shame that ASUS hasn't shared the price of its RT-N18U 2.4 GHz 600 Mbps High Power Router.