Synology RT1900ac 802.11ac Wireless Router Review

Introduction

For anyone that follows the market, you will certainly know that Synology is synonymous with storage as they have been designing and producing NAS solutions for nearly 16 years. Starting from scratch in 2000 and releasing their first solution three years later, the DS-101, Synology has grown to be a worldwide leader in business storage solutions.

Back in early October 2015, Synology released their flagship and only wireless router solution into several markets including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. Now at the beginning of 2016, Synology has ironed this solution out and is ready to launch this product in the three largest markets in the world, Canada, China and the U.S.A.

With this router, Synology is offering lag-free gaming, video streaming and quick file transfers utilizing the latest chipset from Broadcom. Adding to this is what I would call the most important part of the router, the firmware or OS. As you can expect with years of experience in the storage market, Synology has launched their routing solution with a very clean, well laid out interface that focuses on both functionality and performance.

Dubbed SRM, this OS features application layer QoS letting consumers get down to the fine details seeing which applications are using the most bandwidth. Additional features include easy to use parental controls, web filtering along with VPN, RADIUS and an app library for add-on features.

Taking a look at the hardware specifications of the RT1900ac, this solution is powered by the Broadcom BCM58622 Communications Processor. As you will see in later pictures, it features two ARM Cortex A9 cores operating at 1GHz. Paired with the CPU is 256MB of DDR3 memory with our solution using Samsung ICs. The radios for this solution too are powered by Broadcom under the model number of BCM43460 and feature Skyworks Amplifiers in a 3x3 configuration.

LAN and WAN offer gigabit connectivity with a single port for WAN and four ports for LAN while adding to the I/O, Synology has included an SD card reader and USB 3.0 port. The Synology RT1900ac is a dual band solution offering 600Mbps on the 2.4GHz band with 256QAM support while the 5GHz band is capable of 1300Mbps.

MSRP of the Synology RT1900ac Wireless Router is set at $199.99 and features a two-year warranty.