The Predator Connect W6d is a router specially designed for gamers, with a unique appearance and many features.
Acer is not the first brand that comes to mind when networking products are mentioned, although the company already has such products, even a Wi-Fi 6E compatible mesh set, which can be found in the environmentally friendly Vero series. The subject of our current post, however, represents a completely different segment: it has arrived in the high-performance category manufactured for gamers. His name Predator Connect W6dand it is a dual-band AX6000 router with a unique, eye-catching cover.
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The appearance of the device already indicates that it is not an ordinary network device, as it is on the one hand larger than usual, and on the other hand much more striking, thanks to the internal lighting that filters through the cooling grilles in a way that cannot be called discreet at all (who is bothered by this , it can reduce the brightness, and you can even automate this by setting the night mode). From a certain angle, the light shapes the Predator logo, and the change in its color and brightness informs us about the router’s different operating conditions and status.
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There are four fold-out and rotatable antennas on the device, an interesting thing about them is that the firmware offers the possibility to optimize their position. When the function is activated, the light of the small LEDs next to the antennas shows when the radio signals of the connected clients are the strongest.
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In terms of connectors, the Predator Connect W6d is not bad: it offers a 2.5GbE WAN port and four gigabit LAN ports for wired connection. One of the latter is labeled “Gamer”, and the device connected to it is automatically treated with a higher priority by the built-in QoS engine. This Hybrid QoS, which is compatible with the Intel Killer engine, tries to prioritize communication in an intelligent way, e.g. putting game packets first and plain mail at the back. We can even have a say in the schedule, clients can be moved between lower and higher priority groups with the mouse on a graphical interface. There is also a USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A port on the side of the machine, which can be used to share external data storage on the network.
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Setting up the router is easy, since after connecting the Internet connection and the network power source, we only have to wait for the end of the boot process (this is also indicated by the mentioned lighting), then connect to the Connect W6d WLAN network and enter the management interface. You can do this in the browser, but Acer also offers a mobile app called Predator Connect. In the latter, we can only access the basic services, so the first setting is therefore better done in a browser. One of the steps here is the mandatory password change, where the interface even draws attention to the properties of a sufficiently strong password.
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From a security point of view, Acer’s offer can be said to be quite good, if only because, with the help of the Network Security Engine from TrendMicró, it continuously tries to filter out malicious programs and websites arriving via the Internet and prevent attacks. An interesting feature of the system is that it also protects smart home devices separately: if it sees that a compromised IoT client is connected to the network, it prevents access from the Internet. If necessary, we can also create a separate WLAN network for them, which will operate completely isolated from our “normal” and “guest” network.
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As for the services, Acer does not skimp on these either, the Predator Connect W6d really knows a lot, and thanks to the powerful hardware – quad-core, 2 GHz MediaTek processor, 1 GB DDR4 RAM, 4 GB ROM – it doesn’t even slow down. . We have already mentioned the security solutions, but the operation of the LAN/WLAN can also be fine-tuned down to the smallest details. In the case of the WAN, you can choose from several modes, for example the router can work as a bridge, but it is also possible to connect it with other Acer network products to create a mesh network, increasing the coverage.
In the case of Wi-Fi, all parameters of the radio networks can be customized, and in addition to the already mentioned Hybrid QOS, “antenna calibration” and TrendMicro Security Engine, among the extras, a VPN server (OpenVPN and IPSec) is also available. The only thing that the Predator Connect W6d cannot boast of is parental control, it can be seen that Acer paid more attention to services that increase speed and security.
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By the way, this has its results, the router is really fast, even if several computers, mobile phones and a complete smart home system are connected to it. The data transfer speed is also fine, near the router we measured over a gigabit (1250-1300 Mbps) bandwidth between modern notebooks, and a speed of around 900 Mbps in the wired direction. The range is not outstanding, but it is acceptable, it can easily provide Internet access in an average apartment.
Source: prohardver.hu
