
Synology is a company that is very well known for its NAS drive. The company also make some really good routers and the latest RT2600ac is a brilliant example. The new RT2600ac is security-oriented high-speed Wi-Fi router that is designed to be installed in either an office or a home setup. The router comes with support for MU-MIMO and offers the latest 802.11ac wave 2 standard.
The Synology Router RT2600ac packs pretty much everything you’d want in a new high-performance router. Under the hood, the RT2600ac comes packed with a 1.7GHz Qualcomm IPQ8065 dual-core processor combined with 512MB of RAM, which is designed to power its onboard firewall, QoS, and file serving capabilities without much trouble.
The router comes with 4×4 802.11ac wave 2 dual-band Wi-Fi capability thus allowing it to reach a maximum performance of 2.53Gbps when multiple clients simultaneously transfer data across your wireless network. Inside the box, you get some documentation, the Synology Router RT2600ac, four antennas, an Ethernet cable, and a power adapter.
While the RT2600ac might look boring to some, it makes up for that in its performance and features department. On the front of the RT2600ac, we get an SD card slot which can be used for additional storage. The router also has a 4×4 dual-band (2.4GHz, 5GHz) antenna array, as mentioned before, which allows for its MU-MIMO and beam-forming functionality.
At the top of the RT2600ac is a big Synology logo with a lineup of status indicator LEDs. On the edges, you get a whole bunch of buttons such as WPS, Wi-Fi On/Off, and USB/SD eject. There’s also a USB 3.0 port well for those who want to add some basic networked storage with an external hard drive. At the rear, you get the power switch, the DC power in, reset button, USB 2.0 port and five gigabit Ethernet ports.
Synology is well known for some amazing software that it bundles with its devices. And that holds true for the RT2600ac router. The router is accompanied by the Synology Router Manager (SRM) application that offers a look that matches Synology’s very own DSM (DiskStation Manager) software. The software gives the router a polished and easy to use interface that’s as pretty and easy to use as it’s powerful.
Once the software has been installed, you get a very slick looking interface to access the features of the router that looks more like an operating system on its own. From the interface, you can also get into the Package Center, which lets you install even more applications. The SRM is also available as a mobile app for iOS and Android devices, which lets you perform traffic control and monitoring right from your mobile devices.
Settings that can be accessed through the SRM include QoS, security settings, parental controls, file sharing, and much more. From the Package Center, you can install a range of applications such as Cloud Station, VPN Plus, Intrusion Prevention (IDS/IPS), Media Server and so on. But all these bells and whistles won’t be of much assistance if the performance weren’t up to mark.
Well, I am happy to report that the performance on the Synology RT2600ac router was top notch. The wired performance was really good, reaching close to the Gigabit speed limit on paper. Wireless performance was also very good with 5GHz performance sometimes reaching close to 538Mbps.
If you are a techie at heart, you will love to play around with the Synology RT2600ac, its settings and the apps that can be installed through the Package Center. At AED 850 the Synology RT2600ac might seem a bit overpriced. However, it makes up for it, by offering top-notch performance, excellent UI and apps, and swift setup.
Price: AED 850