Once Cisco, Cisco always?

In the IT industry, you hear the phrase "Once Cisco, Cisco always." quite often. I install professionally for many years networks, wait and trouble shoote it also. Cisco is for me like no other manufacturer of reliable (!), Performance and well-made products. As decency a new access point for my living room I have without flinching the WAP121 purchased ... despite much more favorable products in the customer area. Nevertheless, 100 euros for Cisco ratios are almost a bargain. Ultimately, even the really small dimensions and Power over Ethernet was the tip the scales, finally, the access point should be installed in the living room.

However, I also heard of the "low bandwith" problem with HTTP connections (for example, when downloading from the Internet), which seems difficult to grasp and apparently overtaken only a fairly small group of users. The problem is, As of today, unfortunately, still not resolved. The problem per se and the long processing time are somehow atypical for Cisco, but perhaps also due to the low-price segment ... who knows. The fact is that all manufacturers (especially in the price range under 100 euros) also have their skeletons in the closet. Therefore, one should take a chance and order the WAP121 once, because the device itself is really great (especially since you can check fairly easily, whether you are affected or not). To make a long story short ... I have the problem with the low throughput NOT, neither with my Dell laptop (Intel Chipset), even with my 3 Android devices (Sony Xperia SP, Samsung Galaxy Tab and Motorola Defy +). I had, incidentally, the current firmware 1.0.3.4 partly filled after the initial startup of May-2013.

We come to the Pros & Cons:

+ Dimensions (really small and no external antenna, making it ideal for the living room)
+ Good to very good range (my requirements were met; range and throughput higher than those of my previous 802.11g APs)
+ PoE
+ 4 virtual APs possible (different SSIDs, separated by 4 VLANs)
+ Single-Point setup for multiple units
+ Built-in sniffer function (incl. Promiscuous mode!), Which even can stream over the LAN interface to a PC running Wireshark to stream live (alternatively, a PCAP file to download)
+ Backup configuration and Mirror configuration (the latter is created automatically when the is "productive" configuration 24 is not changed)
+ Firmware Fallback (if something goes wrong with the update)
+ Many other features, which I do not use (QoS, Bridge, WDS, WPS, ACLs, 802.1x ...)

- The recess for the LAN cable to the mounting plate can not accommodate a cable with anti-kink sleeve! Since I did not want to resort to the rather short (and bright blue) supplied cable, I have the old plug (with bend protection sleeve) cut at a present cable and crimped a simple plug (without kink protection sleeve). Alternatively, the anti-kink sleeve and of course with a utility knife come to grips with. Or not ... at this point a weak performance of Cisco ... because someone has slept real product design of the mounting plate.

Conclusion: Aside from the story to the mounting plate (1 star deduction) an excellent access point, which I would recommend highly.