Amped Wireless Artemis AC1300 RTA1300M Wireless Router Review

Introduction

Back when 802.11n was in its heyday, Amped Wireless was the go-to vendor for high-performance extreme range solutions. Now with 802.11ac a few years into its deployment, we have a whole host of vendors producing solid, high-performance solutions.

To cater to those just entering or looking to get into 802.11ac, we have the entry-level platforms such as AC900 and AC1200. The Artemis from Amped falls into the entry-level market but puts a twist on it with a Qualcomm EFX platform offering AC1300 performance. AC1300 differs slightly from AC1200 in that they share the same 867 Mbps throughput on the 5GHz band while the 2.4GHz band comes in at 300 Mbps on the AC1200 platform and 400 Mbps on the AC1300 platform.

Amped has added additional features to the Artemis to make it a stronger AC1300 platform. These include MU-MIMO functionality that is powered by eight amplifiers along with beamforming and bandwidth optimization via QoS.

Pricing, Availability, and Specifications

Specifications of the RTA1300M start off with throughput numbers for this dual-band solution. 2.4GHz is capable of 399 Mbps while 5GHz comes in at 866 Mbps, powered by two amplifiers for each band and another four low noise amplifiers. At the center of this platform is a quad-core ARM processor with no mention of its speed or the accompanying memory or flash. Moving on this platform has two detachable antennas and houses four gigabit LAN ports, a single WAN port and one USB 3.0 port for storage.

The MSRP of the Amped Wireless Artemis RTA1300M comes in at $129.99 with a one-year warranty.