Cisco 881 or Cisco 881?

There are two versions of the Cisco 881 branch router:

• Part numbers beginning with CISCO881, which have been end of lifed.
• Part numbers beginning with C881, which are newly available.

There are a bunch of differences between these models, but it's hard to tell that a difference even exists, let alone what the differences are by looking at the available documentation. I just got my hands on a new C881 for the first time. Here's what I've noticed.

Physical Differences

New C881 on top, old CISCO881 (not wireless - don't believe the stickers) on bottom.

New C881 on top

Twin screw holes on the new C881...

...make the ACS-890-RM-19= work on the C881.

• The USB port has been moved from one side to the other.
• The "fake" screw hole on the side is now a threaded hole, which means that the C881 will accept the 891's rack mount hardware.
• The Fa4 port has moved a bit.
• The C881 is lead free, which seems to be what prompted all of these gyrations.

Power Differences

• We have a power switch!
• There's no longer a dedicated PoE brick.
• There's still a required internal PoE module, and it's got a different part number.

Licensing Differences

• C881 ships with 1GB RAM, but half of it is crippled by a license.
• C881 running c800-universal software image doesn't enforce the advanced IP services license, while a CISCO881 running c880-universal software image does enforce that license.

 ! CISCO881-K9 with PoE option running c880data-universalk9-mz.154-3.M.bin  
 CISCO881#show inventory  
 NAME: "881", DESCR: "881 chassis, Hw Serial#: xxxxxxxxxxx, Hw Revision: 1.0"  
 PID: CISCO881-K9    , VID: V01 , SN: xxxxxxxxxxx  
   
 NAME: "ESW Power Daughter Card", DESCR: "4-Port ESW Power Daughter Card"  
 PID: ILPM-4      , VID: V01 , SN: xxxxxxxxxxx  
   
 CISCO881#show license feature   
 Feature name       Enforcement Evaluation Subscription  Enabled RightToUse  
 advipservices      yes     yes     no       no    yes  
 advsecurity        no      no      no       yes   no  
 ios-ips-update     yes     yes     yes      no    yes  

 ! C881-K9 without PoE option running c800-universalk9-mz.SPA.154-3.M.bin  
 C881#show inventory  
 NAME: "C881-K9", DESCR: "C881-K9 chassis, Hw Serial#: xxxxxxxxxxx, Hw Revision: 1.0"  
 PID: C881-K9      , VID: V01, SN: xxxxxxxxxxx  
   
 NAME: "C881 Mother board on Slot 0", DESCR: "C881 Mother board"  
 PID: C881-K9      , VID: V01, SN: xxxxxxxxxxx  
   
 C881#show license feature  
 Feature name       Enforcement Evaluation Subscription  Enabled RightToUse  
 advipservices      no      yes     no       no    yes  
 advsecurity        no      no      no       no    no  
 ios-ips-update     yes     yes     yes      no    yes  
 MEM-8XX-512U1GB    yes     yes     no       no    yes  

The old 881 won't let me configure BGP, multicast, VRFs without the advipservices license, but the new 881 (or the c800-universal software build) is currently running those features in the lab without any problem.

ASR1002 does something similar: the IPSec RTU license on that box lists for US $10,000, but it's not enforced. I don't understand why they've done this.

I've not yet tried loading the c800-universal image on an old 881.

Other stuff

• The C881 comes with twice as much flash (256MB rather than 128MB) as the CISCO881 - It's a good thing because the c800-universal software image is approximately twice the size (80MB) of the c880-universal image.
• The C881 isn't available bundled with the advipservices license, which would be an annoying hassle if the license were enforced.

Update

Requested photos:

C881

CISCO881

Update2
Matt shares a shot of his C887VAM-K9 for comparison. Lots of missing parts on the C881 appear here.

C887VAM-K9