The TEW-691GR

The actual TEW-691GR is not a bad looking product. It is black and sleek.

Along the front are the obligatory lights to indicate power, WAN, WLAN and LAN connectivity as well as a WPS indicator.

The sides have the cooling vents while the left side has a the WPS button.

The back is the business end. As we mentioned before, all the antennas are hard mounted to the TEW-691GR. You also have a switch to manually turn the TEW-691GR on and off. This is right next to the switch that lets you turn the wireless on or off. The four LAN ports visible are all GBe, as is the WAN port.

As we mentioned in the introduction, the TEW-691 is rated at 450Mbps (theoretical). In reality this means up to a 225Mbps connection. The specifications on the unit are pretty impressive. The TEW-691GR does not support multiple bands (2.4GHz and 5GHz). instead it operates in the 2.4GHz frequency range (2.412-2.472GHz). Each of the three fixed antennas is 4dBi dipole. It is these antennas that allow for the three spatial streams.

But interestingly enough, while the TEW-691GR is capable of supporting three data streams, if you connect with a card that only has two antennas then you will only get two (as you probably might have figured). At that point your connection speed will drop back down to 150Mbps or below.