First Look – Hardware and Features
In the box you will receive the ASUS router, CD, instruction manual, power adapter, network cable, and three antenna’s which you will need to attach on to the router yourself.
Below is what the ASUS 802.11 AC-1900 router looks like with the three antennas attached in the recommended positions. During lab testing, ASUS found that the antenna’s work best in this configuration and we are going with their recommendation for our testing.
The front of the router has a shimmery metallic look and feel – futuristic looking that will either appeal to you or not. On the front you will also find all of the activity lights for the device which include, NIC link activity, WAN activity, USB activity, and both 2.4GHz and 5GHz WiFi activity along with the Power light.
On the side of the router you can find the On/Off switch for the WiFi, and no there is not a separate switch for 2.4GHz and 5GHz (too bad). There is also the WPS switch to make connecting to the WiFi network much easier for WPS-enabled devices.
On the back of the router we can find some basic instructions on how to initially connect, along with the default username and password. You will also find the power button, USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports, WAN port and also the 4 Gigabit ports. There is also an LED that lights the ASUS logo at the bottom white that can be disabled with the LED on/off switch just above it.
That sums up the hardware features of the router. A few things that we noted were that there was no way to mount the device to a ceiling or wall. Also, the stand which it sits on is not removable which means there are limited installation options.
