The Package

The box the RT-N13U ships is not too bad; it has a nice image of the RT-N13U on the front plus the usual logos, awards and "hard sell" to get you to pick up this product. One thing I find interesting, though; in this day and age when the majority of consumers (of computer hardware) buy online or scour the websites for information, why do manufacturers still waste money in printing up flashy boxes? Yes, if you go to the computer markets in Taipei, Hong Kong, or other places like that, you will see rows and stacks of boxed hardware, but this is not common for other places in the world.

But I am digressing here; I can bore you with my thoughts on ads and box appeal later.

Flipping the box over, we find that ASUS has not left the back side out of the game. It is quite cluttered back here, but amid the jumble of images you can get a feeling for where the RT-N13U can fit into your network and what it brings to the Home Networking table.

After getting past all the marketing imagery and actually opening the box, you get to what you really were interested in; the RT-N13U and the goodies that ASUS packs with it.

ASUS has packed in everything you need to get started. Well, everything you need if you are not intending to actually use this with a computer. One thing I have always wondered about with home networking equipment; why do they only give you a single Ethernet cable and then tell you to setup the product with your computer directly connected? Wouldn't you need two cables to do that properly? - Still, as 99% of the home networking manufacturers do this, I cannot fault ASUS for it as well.