Basic Features
The GX comes packaged in silver-grey Cisco-style packaging that's about 6 inches (15.2 cm) square by about 1.5 (3.8 cm) inches thick, instead of Linksys' traditional purple and grey plastic box. Given its unusual three-antenna arrangement, the GX is really intended to sit upright, and even has a little swing-out foot built right into it so that you won't have to hunt around for a separate plastic stand. It can also be wall-mounted by using the four screw slots built into its bottom cover.
All indicator lights are on the front of the box and are bright and viewable from a wide angle. All network connection indicators are single Link/Activity types for the four 10/100 LAN ports, WLAN (wireless LAN) and 10/100 Internet (WAN) ports. Power and DMZ general indicators round out the light show.
The DMZ indicator lights whenever the DMZ feature - which opens up all ports to one selected LAN machine - is enabled. The WLAN light is a good indicator of wireless activity - normally on and briefly shutting off when the WLAN link is passing traffic. It also extinguishes when you set the Wireless Network Mode selector in the admin interface to Disabled to shut off the router's radio.
Four 10/100 LAN ports, one 10/100 WAN port and power jack are on the right side (facing the front of the GX) panel. All ports are auto MDI / MDI-X (though Linksys doesn't spec or mention this) which means they'll figure out how to connect to whatever you plug into them, including switches if you decide to expand the number of ports. The reset-to-factory-defaults switch is on the bottom of the router, which will be a pain to access if you choose to wall-mount the router.
The GX includes a nice-looking Start Here envelope, which contains a CD in a clearly-marked sleeve with a lime-green Run CD First label. The envelope also contains some marketing material and a generic Frequently Asked Questions sheet, but no printed Quick Start poster. So if you haven't done this before, you'll either need to use the Setup Wizard that auto-launches when you insert the CD into a Windows system, or dig into the Doc folder on the CD for the PDF user guide.
Also included on the CD are a trial version of Symantec's Norton Internet Security Suite and Adobe Acrobat reader installer. You also get a normal UTP Ethernet cable and a pretty heavy 120VAC-only power supply with permanently-attached AC mains and DC cables.