What is the very best wireless router available right now? - Page 2

Apple Airport Extreme owner here. Horrible range. Replaced with a cheapo Dlink DIR-655 and the range literally doubled. Granted, my house has many walls and even the Dlink can't reach the two back bedrooms, but the Airport signal nosedive as soon as you left the living room.

I have not used every router on the market so cannot answer this question.

My Buffalo works great though.

I didn't say it was the best. Obviously I haven't tried every wireless router on the market. I was just giving my own experiences with the Airport Extreme, and I've been extremely satisfied with them so far.

If you want high bitrate HD streaming wouldn't it be best to wait and invest in one of the new 802.11ac ones?

I have to agree with StanF I have the Netgear WNDR3700 and can atest that these are a well rounded and very reliable.

I have been using a Apple AIrport Extreme router for over 2 years. I never had any issues with it.
If you hold the option key down, you get more options. I am using what the red arrow is pointing at.

IF you like the idea of an Apple product, I have a 4 year old Airport Express and I love it plus it's half the price of the Extreme. Plus you can use the Express to add Airplay functionality to any set of speakers that have an optical or mini input. Also the newer Airport Express has dual band and a spare ethernet jack.

However, you can get something cheaper and technically faster. My guess though is that you won't notice the speed differences but will notice the wallet lightening difference. But I have found the Airport Utility on both Mac and PC to be easy to use. Some setup utilities of other routers are more complicated.

All the Apple products I have ever bought I have been very happy with and have always been reliable. That said, I have never camped out for an Apple product and only recently got an iPhone because it was free.


Update:
If you don't care about the dual band 5/2.4GHz, you can buy the older (new in box) Express from Vanns right now for $80 instead of $100. It's the same model I have. But like I said no dual band.
Edited by aidoroboo - 7/2/12 at 10:58am

I have to agree with StanF and go with the Netgear WNDR3700 I have had this and can atest that this is reliable and has many features in the long run/

Get a router that is Tomato or DD-WRT compatible. Then get a nice Gigabit switch to pair with it.

I recently tried to update my wireless router and quickly switched back to my rock-steady Buffalo G router (WHR-HP-G54). All the N routers I tried had less of a signal radius than my old one and there was no noticeable speed difference when using the internet. I do not transfer large amount of data between computers in my house and if I need to, I use my external hard drive. Also, I have to reset my WHR-HP-G54 maybe twice a year... it just performs. You can also load a custom firmware onto it, if you are into that sort of thing.

I honestly do not know what I am going to do when my WHR-HP-G54 craps out.

The 3700 is tried and true and can be found at a good discount since it's no longer being made and there are plenty on the shelves to be had. It takes Netgear a long time to work the bugs out of it's routers, so getting the newest is not a great idea as they tend to put very buggy products on the market. I once bricked Netgear's last flagship router just by enabling a standard feature when I bought it to replace my current 3700 that suffered from Netgear firmware rot and swapped it out for a newer revision of the 3700 at Best Buy.

+1 Small Net Builder is a fantastic web site.

Mark

Apple will always be much higher value than ALL others in one category: RESALE VALUE

If you wan't reliability now and you'd like 802.11AC, but you don't want to wait for them you can get basically any apple router and resale it on craigslist for +80% of what you paid. Linksys, Asus, et al, will fetch decent resale on ebay/amazon but never what apple will fetch on craigslist plus you don't pay commission. I've moved a 2011 airport express in 3 hours on craigslist for $80 for my coworker who upgraded to a time capsule on 5/11/2012.

I've also successfully sold my 16GB out-of-contract 3gs for $250 this year after paying $200 back in 2009. I like other manufacturers products, but it's easy to catch the apple train for a little while and get your money back. I've never been able to do that with Asus, Dell, Acer, etc

There is a new protocol called "AC" for faster wireless data throughput. However, there are no client devices on the market yet. I would hold off on AC for now as it would not matter for me for at least a year and there will be more AC routers then.

But, if you want to update to AC now I would go with the Netgear 6300 which was just reviewed by CNET http://reviews.cnet.com/routers/netgear-r6300-wifi-router/4505-3319_7-35315201.html?tag=TOCcarouselMain.0

Otherwise I would buy the Cisco Linksys E4200 V2 as it has the best all around performance for N900 routers.

http://www.expansys-usa.com/belkin-share-max-n300-wireless-n+router-231205/

I believe this is the best router for the money.

You have gigabit
You have N (not the dual channel stuff)
You can install DDWRT
You can install Tomato

All depends on your needs

Streaming dvd's on the usb port is flawless. It cant handle HD via the USB though.

For $22 shipped, the stock firmware has been rock solid for me.

Sorry I can't comment on all, but here are my last four routers for comment

---Belkin G Plus MIMO
Pretty reliable, didn't get hot. Menus non-intuitive and "organized" to where you have to search through them all to get to what you're looking for. Usually Belkins use the broadcom adapter with low cache, so not dd-wrt compatible. Retired this one to my parents house, and about twice a year I've got to walk them through using "192.168.2.1" to enter the web-menu and clone their computers mac address to get their wireless back up. I don't know why this happens, but wireless will knock out and the support line asked me to clone my computers mac address to the router and that fixed it. Annoying to do it 1-2 times a year, but not bad otherwise

---Belkin N
This was my upgrade when phasing the G Plus to my parents, and I just didn't have enough punishment from the first Belkin to keep away. Also I got it for a steal in 2009 for $40. Monthly issues with this thing, wireless kick off and up-time would restart without any explicable reason. Logs on and off, no difference and no logical reason for the interruptions in the logs and still happened when not logging. Also uses non-DD-WRT compatible adapter/ram combination.

---Asus 54GL
Never used the stock firmware, flashed to DD-WRT. Wanted it for cheap-nas from a usb drive. Back in 2010, I couldn't get usb 2.0 or ntfs mounts from the list of compatible firmwares. Stuck with USB1.1 and FAT formatted usb drive made it good for little other than a picture/music server. Music wasn't always that great. The best thing about this router with dd-wrt or tomato was the rock-solid reliability. I used it without any interruptions, and over 300 days up time before I had to reset it. I didn't think I had any tech-competent neighbors, but somebody cracked the non-dictionary, non-ordinary wpa passphrase and set it up as an open network for over a week before I noticed it. Unrelated to the routers performance and completely due to wpa security

---Linksys E4200v2
I plan to use this router for a long time. I wanted dual-bands so that I could have wireless for the phones, laptop, devices, printer, etc while using one band for dedicated video streaming to a linksys wes-610n wireless bridges (recommended here on the forums by mlknez, many thanks). I can send full 1080p with hd audio from an WHS 2011 nfs-mount to the bedroom htpc without hiccups. Also use it to share the tuners from hdhomerun prime to the same bridge, or laptop, or wired htpc without a hitch.
I've had this up and running 60 days no resets, no down-time, no fuss. I'm very impressed with the stock menu options for the Linksys, especially the DHCP reservations which is important if you're looking for expandability like using your old router as a repeater in another room. Definitely follow small net builders advice in this arena if you've got lots of walls and still demand wireless in obscure reaches. Old routers can be had for cheap that work well as repeaters if you're willing to give up one of your router's LAN ports.
Also, according to Cisco, the 4200v2 will get CloudConnect app support (just like the ea4500 comes with) from a firmware update, but I haven't heard anything further or seen this happen yet. http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57409483-1/cisco-launches-app-enabled-router/?tag=cnetRiver

The new Apple Express ($99) is now dual band operation (two networks). The Apple Extreme has had several versions. The current model is ip6 usable, and rock solid. Both models allow Simultaneous dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi networks.

I'm running the N66U with merlins custom firmware and it's the best router I've ever had. Great range and hasn't dropped once since I started it up 5 months ago.

Just bought a D-Link DIR-601 for all of $29.99 an hour ago. Works! ;-)

(Still can't get my BR player to "see" my DLNA server though, if though the "Enable UPnP" checkbox is enabled...)

Same problem here with 2 different routers, problems finding the server or staying connected...wireless and upnp don't play nice.

Looking myself for an upgrade - try this website URL:

http://shop.retrevo.com/m/search/productpage?c=1047&og=2031483&m=24077850

CNET Review:

http://reviews.cnet.com/routers/asus-rt-n66u-dark/4505-3319_7-35110985.html
Edited by p5browne - 7/2/12 at 2:42pm

CNET, who are usually pretty enthusiastic about Apple products, just reviewed the new Apple Express. Not very positive:

http://reviews.cnet.com/wireless-access-points/apple-airport-express-base/4505-3265_7-35331567.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody;1r

Just purchased from Best Buy on the Canada Day Special ($177 + Free Shipping + 13% HST) - believe me, it's cheaper States Side. Will probably be on a Discount Special at several places on July 4th.

I picked up the Netgear WNDR4000 on Saturday. An IT professional recommended it. I replaced my DSL connection with cable internet, so I couldn't use my old AT&T modem/router. The netgear is working great, and it was pretty easy to setup. Plus it's sexy looking. Anybody have any particular thoughts on this model?

DRC72

It's pretty questionable. Marvell vs Broadcom, both extremely capable with plenty of ram for dd-wrt

Stock firmwares look interesting. Asus looks a lot prettier, but some say not as easily editable as linksys (haven't used it)

Asus can take a 3g usb hotspot for backup internet

Linksys internal antenna design is mature

Asus (as always) looks to have better quality internal heatsink design

I went with the v2 and have no plans to change unless it breaks

CNET beats up Apple as much as the others.
Isn't it interesting that CNET is being critical of routers that are not yet offering 802.11AC which isn't final, as few routers released even support draft 802.11AC?
Edited by JohnAV - 7/2/12 at 4:18pm